Experimental Investigations of a Krypton Stationary Plasma Thruster

A I Bugrova,A M Bishaev,M V Kozintseva,A S Lipatov,A V Desyatskov,M Dudeck

doi:10.1155/2013/686132

Abstract

Stationary plasma thrusters are attractive electric propulsion systems for spacecrafts. The usual propellant is xenon. Among the other suggested propellants, krypton could be one of the best candidates. Most studies have been carried out with a Hall effect thruster previously designed for xenon. The ATON A-3 developed by MSTU MIREA (Moscow) initially defined for xenon has been optimized for krypton. The stable high-performance ATON A-3 operation in Kr has been achieved after optimization of its magnetic field configuration and its optimization in different parameters: length and width of the channel, buffer volume dimensions, mode of the cathode operation, and input parameters. For a voltage of 400 V and the anode mass flow rate of 2.5 mg/s the anode efficiency reaches 60% and the specific impulse reaches 2900 s under A-3 operating with Kr. The achieved performances under operation A-3 with Kr are presented and compared with performances obtained with Xe.

Highlights

Hall effect thruster (HET, named electron drift thrusters or Stationary Plasma Thrusters—SPT or PPS) is currently considered as the most efficient propulsion device for stationkeeping of geostationary satellite for telecommunication
The ATON A-3 is a 400 W–1000 W thruster that in operation with the xenon as propellant under the anode mass flow rate of 2.3 mg/s achieves a thrust of 46.6 mN at voltage of (Ud) 350 V and a discharge current of 2.25 A
The experiments have been carried out in order to optimize ATON A-3 in the channel width and length and buffer volume dimensions and in order to optimize the mode of the cathode operation, that is, in the mass flow rate through it, its input power and its location relative to the thruster outlet. (The concrete values of all these parameters depend of the concrete model of used SPT and must be selected experimentally for every used SPT model.) Our purpose during all optimization experiments was obtaining the maximal anode efficiency of the thruster

Summary

Introduction

Hall effect thruster (HET, named electron drift thrusters or Stationary Plasma Thrusters—SPT or PPS) is currently considered as the most efficient propulsion device for stationkeeping of geostationary satellite for telecommunication. In this electrostatic plasma thruster, positive ions are created in an annular channel by inelastic collisions between neutral atoms and electrons emitted by an external hollow cathode. All the authors indicate the necessity of an optimisation of the design of the HET for use with krypton in order to compensate for its disadvantages For this purpose, increases of the channel length, of the number of atoms of krypton, of the mirror electron effect, and of the discharge voltage are suggested and an optimisation of the magnetic field is required.

Previous Experimental Works with Krypton

Performances of the ATON A-3

Findings

Conclusion