Hollow cathode thrusters for all-electric spacecraft
Grubisic, A.N. and Gabriel, S.B. (2007) Hollow cathode thrusters for all-electric spacecraft. In, 58th International Astronautical Federation Congress, Hyderabad, India, 24 - 28 Sep 2007. London, UK, Acta Astronautica15pp.
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Description/Abstract
This paper characterizes thrust performance of a variant of the T6 hollow cathode modified for improved operational characteristics. The device displays promising performance and highlights the potential for application as a microthruster. The T6 cathode is able to produce specific impulse of over 1050s with xenon and argon; however the dominant acceleration mechanism at low flow rates is shown to be almost entirely electromagnetic effectively constituting a low power, magneto-plasma-dynamic thruster. The modified cathode also displayed very low discharge voltages ~12V and stable operation while carrying currents as high as 30-Amps on flow rates of less than 0.1mgs-1 down to 0.04mgs-1 with xenon. This investigation also highlights the importance of electrode geometry in hollow cathode thruster design and indeed in all other applications of hollow cathode where flow rates should be minimized
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
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| Related URLs: | |
| Keywords: | hollow cathode, micro thruster, electric propulsion, plasma, ion |
| Subjects: | U Military Science > U Military Science (General) T Technology > TL Motor vehicles. Aeronautics. Astronautics Q Science > QC Physics |
| Divisions: | University Structure - Pre August 2011 > School of Engineering Sciences > Astronautics |
| Item ID: | 72463 |
| Date Deposited: | 15 Feb 2010 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Mar 2012 13:12 |
| Contributors: | Grubisic, A.N. (Author) Gabriel, S.B. (Author) |
| Date: | 24 September 2007 |
| Status: | Published |
| Publisher: | Acta Astronautica |
| URI: | http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/72463 |
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