Abstract
This study aimed at discussing the laws of the design parameters of a radio frequency (RF) ion thruster that influence the thruster performance, guide the performance optimization-oriented design of the thruster, and realize the high-accuracy continuous adjustment of the thrust performance. The key influencing parameters of the thrust performance were analyzed by the numerical simulation method. The influencing laws of RF parameters on key plasma parameters, as well as the thermal characteristics of the thruster under the rated parameters, were explored. Moreover, a LRIT-30 RF ion thruster was developed and subjected to the performance adjustment test. The research results demonstrated that the simulation model can describe the plasma parameter distribution of the discharge chamber and the thermal distribution of key components. The 3 cm RF ion thruster performs well under 2 MHz operational frequency. The RF power and gas flow rate are the key influencing factors of beam extraction and are appropriate for the accurate adjustment of parameters. The wide-range adjustment of thrust (0.5–2.3 mN) and specific impulse (869–2564 s) can be realized when the screen-grid voltage, decelerating screen voltage, RF power, and gas flow rate are 1500 V, −200 V, 40–65 W, and 0.4–0.8 SCCM, respectively. The performance indices of the proposed RF ion thruster are close to the international advanced level.
Highlights
Electric propulsion is an advanced propelling system in spacecraft that transforms external electric energy into the jet kinetic energy of a propellant
The heat of radio frequency (RF) ion thrusters comes from the energy deposition caused by the impact of charged particles on the discharge chamber wall and grid surface, the energy deposition caused by the thermal radiation of excited atoms onto the wall and grid surface, and the heat loss of the RF coil
The variations in beam current, thrust, specific impulse, and efficiency with RF power showed the highest linearity without evident inflection point in performance at the gas flow rate of 0.6 SCCM
Summary
Electric propulsion is an advanced propelling system in spacecraft that transforms external electric energy into the jet kinetic energy of a propellant. Ion electric propulsion is a widely applied thruster type in orbit because of its high specific impulse, high efficiency, and continuous adjustable performance. The radio frequency (RF) ion thruster without electrode can achieve high performance under micropower and has attracted wide attention from international space agencies. Goebel from America established an RF ion thruster analysis model and calculated discharge loss under the given beam and propellant flow rate based on the hypothesis of volume average plasma.. Based on the research of Goebel, Chabert introduced the transformer model to solve the key plasma parameters of the discharge chamber and calculate the performance indices of the thruster.. The plasma parameters of the discharge chamber of the RF ion thruster were calculated using the fluid model. The electron–ion collision frequency was calculated by considering the Coulomb reaction
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