Preliminary Plume Characterization of a Low-Power Hall Thruster Cluster

Abstract

In an effort to understand the technical issues related to running multiple Hall effect thrusters in close proximity to each other, testing of a cluster of four Busek BHT-200-X3 devices has begun in Chamber 6 at the Air Force Research Laboratory. Preliminary measurements have shown that the variations in the discharge currents of the four thrusters are synchronized, possibly due to cross talk through the thruster plumes. Measurements of plasma density, electron temperature, and plasma potential in the thruster plumes obtained using a triple Langmuir probe are presented. Anomalously high electron temperatures were recorded along the centerline of each thruster. Collisionless, magnetosonic shock waves induced by the ion-ion two-stream instability are proposed as a possible cause of the high temperatures. The unperturbed ion velocity distribution along the centerline of a Hall thruster is shown to be unstable and a simple geometric model is presented to illustrate the qualitative changes in plasma properties expected across the proposed shock. Estimates using this model show that relatively large changes in electron temperature are consistent with small changes in electron number density across a shock. Qualitative arguments are presented indicating that collisionless shocks are unlikely to form as a result of clustering multiple thrusters.