The Power Reduction of the Air-Breathing Hall-Effect Thruster

Abstract

The Hall-effect thruster (HET), a kind of the electric propulsion system, is known as one of next generation propulsion system because of a lot of benefits. Furthermore, the air-breathing Hall-effect thruster (ABHET) has additional benefits in comparison to the HET. By using the ambient air as a propellant while the HET uses the noble gas as a propellant, it doesn't require a space to store a propellant, which results the decrease in its size. It may allow the spacecraft to bring more payloads and to be able to be operated for longer time. Previously, the research <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1</sup> on the ABHET has been performed, but the power was so high that the thruster can't bear with it. This is because the research was done with the consideration that all atoms are fully ionized, which resulted very high power. Thus, this research is done in order to look at the proper ionization rate for which the device can bear with. The power needs to be reduced to approximately 1kW or less. The operational altitude is from 90km to 100km, which is known as the LEO (Low Earth Orbit). The power needed is calculated by controlling the ionization rate. Also, the length of the channel is considered to control the power. Based on the results, the proper ionization rate and the proper length of the channel are presented and discussed.