Extended Operation and Modification of 20 mN Class Xenon Ion Engine

Abstract

To extend the application of the 20 mN class xenon ion engine which was used for north-south station keeping of a geosynchronous satellite--the engineering test satellite-VIII-, the ion thruster's thrust throttling performance was evaluated. The candidate target application is aerodynamic drag compensation of a super-low-altitude earth observation spacecraft. Performance test results show that the thruster, which passed through 12,000 h life test, exhibited a thrust throttling performance from 6 mN to 28 mN, although the thruster showed performance degradation from its initial performance before the life test. A power processing control unit is under development to meet the thrust throttling performance.