Experimental characterisation of a small ring-cusp gridded ion engine using alternative propellants

Abstract

Xenon is the preferred propellant for electric propulsion thrusters, providing high thruster efficiency and long life. However, xenon is extremely expensive and has limited availability, which could impose serious constraints on the use of electric propulsion in some future missions. This report presents the results of the experimental characterisation of a small ring-cusp discharge chamber using xenon (as baseline), krypton and a 1:4 Xe/Kr mixture: while the performance reduction when using krypton compared to xenon reflects the data available in the literature for thrusters of different sizes and types, some of the initial results for the mixture are encouraging for its viability and suitability to be used as propellant in GIEs. These results represent the worst-case scenario for alternative propellants, but it allows the identification of possible modifications (e.g. cathode geometry and ion optics geometry) that could reduce the gap between xenon and the selected alternative propellants. Finally, a noteworthy outcome of the measurements of the plasma parameters inside the discharge chamber is that the profile of the current density at the ion optics seems to be independent of the choice of propellant.

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ORCID for Nazareno Fazio: orcid.org/0000-0003-0968-304X

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