Influences of cathode position on operations and thrust performance of side by side Hall thruster system

Abstract

High-power electric propulsion systems are promising for future large-scale space missions. To develop a high-power Hall thruster cluster system, researchers at the Gifu University have been investigating the effects of plume interference using 500 W class side-by-side (SBS) systems having two magnetic-layer heads. In this study, to investigate the dependencies of discharge characteristics and thrust performance on the axial position of a cathode, we measured the discharge currents and the thrusts for various axial positions. The optimum cathode position for the thrust performance was examined using the results. As the cathode shifted downstream, thrust decreased more than 10% for each operation. The results also revealed that at a high voltage in the SBS operations, the thrust performance increases for shifting the cathode close to the head end.