Abstract
The microthruster is the crucial device of the drag-free attitude control system, essential for the space-borne gravitational wave detection mission. The cusped field thruster (also called the High Efficiency Multistage Plasma Thruster) becomes one of the candidate thrusters for the mission due to its low complexity and potential long life over a wide range of thrust. However, the prescribed minimum of thrust and thrust noise are considerable obstacles to downscaling works on cusped field thrusters. This article reviews the development of the low power cusped field thruster at the Harbin Institute of Technology since 2012, including the design of prototypes, experimental investigations and simulation studies. Progress has been made on the downscaling of cusped field thrusters, and a new concept of microwave discharge cusped field thruster has been introduced.
Highlights
Meet the required resolution, theresolution, non-conservative forces from theforces spacefrom environment be shielded realize the to free-flying offree-flying the TMs; conservative the space must environment musttobe shielded realize the thetherefore, drag-free the control systemcontrol is required
The drag-free pensates for the non-conservative disturbance with the micro propulsion system, to make system compensates for the non-conservative disturbance with the micro propulsion systhe satellite track the TM track in real time minimize relativethe displacement between tem, to make the satellite the TM and in real time andthe minimize relative displacement them
Experimental investigations on the reduction of channel diameter show that the result, the ignition anode voltage increases as the channel diameter increases
Summary
The gravitational wave detection mission requires severalseveral satellitessatellites which which forminterferometer several interferometer arms in space. Experimental results show that a long channel leads to signifiplume divergence andand a reduction in overall efficiency, but but a thruster withwith a too-short cant plume divergence a reduction in overall efficiency, a thruster a toochannel performs low propellant utilization due to ionization region reduction [67]. The test results show that the thruster performs 1.8 μN to 112.7 μN rials and variable cross-section configurations, a 4 mm exit diameter cusped field thruster thrust with mass flow rate from 0.15 sccm to 0.25 sccm and anode voltage from 150 V to was presented in350. The μN-level cusped field thruster does not meet the target thrust noise wall loss, electron conduction difficulty and ionization inefficiency. The size effect is still unavoidable for cusped field thruster downscaling, as it leads to problems such as wall loss, electron conduction difficulty and ionization inefficiency.
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