Performance Evaluation of a Two-Kilowatt Magnetically Shielded Hall Thruster

Abstract

A 2-kW-class magnetically shielded Hall thruster was developed, and its performance was evaluated. Additionally, the effects of the discharge channel length, thruster body potential, anode dielectric coating, and vacuum facility on its performance were investigated. A low discharge channel erosion rate of the thruster configuration with a normalized channel length of 0.74 was achieved at a 2 kW operation with discharge voltages ranging from 300 to 800 V. Moreover, the thrust performance of the magnetically shielded thruster was comparable to that of the unshielded thruster. At the 2 kW operation, the magnetically shielded thruster achieved a throttling range of the specific impulse from 1680 to 2440 s without a strong discharge current oscillation (). The propellant flow density at a discharge voltage of 300 V was sufficiently high to achieve an efficient operation () at an input power of 2.1 kW. However, the proper input power to achieve efficient operation at a discharge voltage of 800 V was approximately 4 kW because the propellant flow density at a total input power of 2.1 kW was significantly rarefied. Stable operation was maintained when the input power reduced from 4.2 to 2.1 kW, whereas the thrust efficiency degraded from 0.508 to 0.429.