Download or read book Performance Characterization of a Novel Plasma Thruster to Provide a Revolutionary Operationally Responsive Space Capability with Micro and Nano satellites written by John-David C. De la Harpe and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Fundamentals of Electric Propulsion written by Dan M. Goebel and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-12-22 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout most of the twentieth century, electric propulsion was considered the technology of the future. Now, the future has arrived. This important new book explains the fundamentals of electric propulsion for spacecraft and describes in detail the physics and characteristics of the two major electric thrusters in use today, ion and Hall thrusters. The authors provide an introduction to plasma physics in order to allow readers to understand the models and derivations used in determining electric thruster performance. They then go on to present detailed explanations of: Thruster principles Ion thruster plasma generators and accelerator grids Hollow cathodes Hall thrusters Ion and Hall thruster plumes Flight ion and Hall thrusters Based largely on research and development performed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and complemented with scores of tables, figures, homework problems, and references, Fundamentals of Electric Propulsion: Ion and Hall Thrusters is an indispensable textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate students who are preparing to enter the aerospace industry. It also serves as an equally valuable resource for professional engineers already at work in the field.

Download or read book Performance Characterization of a High Efficiency Gas fed Pulsed Plasma Thruster written by John K. Ziemer and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A Performance Comparison of Pulsed Plasma Thruster Electrode Configurations written by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-08-09 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pulsed plasma thrusters are currently planned on two small satellite missions and proposed for a third. In these missions, the pulsed plasma thruster's unique characteristics will be used variously to provide propulsive attitude control, orbit raising, translation, and precision positioning. Pulsed plasma thrusters are attractive for small satellite applications because they are essentially stand alone devices which eliminate the need for toxic and/or distributed propellant systems. Pulsed plasma thrusters also operate at low power and over a wide power range without loss of performance. As part of the technical development required for the noted missions, an experimental program to optimize performance with respect to electrode configuration was undertaken. One of the planned missions will use pulsed plasma thrusters for orbit raising requiring relatively high thrust and previously tested configurations did not provide this. Also, higher capacitor energies were tested than previously tried for this mission. Multiple configurations were tested and a final configuration was selected for flight hardware development. This paper describes the results of the electrode optimization in detail. Arrington, Lynn A. and Haag, Tom W. and Pencil, Eric J. and Meckel, Nicole J. Glenn Research Center NASA/TM-97-206305, E-11002, NAS 1.15:206305, IEPC-97-127 NAS3-27186; RTOP 632-1B-1B...

Download or read book Pulsed Plasma Thruster Technology for Small Satellite Missions written by and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A Review of United States Air Force and Department of Defense Aerospace Propulsion Needs written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2007-01-14 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rocket and air-breathing propulsion systems are the foundation on which planning for future aerospace systems rests. A Review of United States Air Force and Department of Defense Aerospace Propulsion Needs assesses the existing technical base in these areas and examines the future Air Force capabilities the base will be expected to support. This report also defines gaps and recommends where future warfighter capabilities not yet fully defined could be met by current science and technology development plans.

Download or read book Stationary Plasma Thruster Evaluation in Russia written by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-07-11 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A team of electric propulsion specialists from U.S. government laboratories experimentally evaluated the performance of a 1.35-kW Stationary Plasma Thruster (SPT) at the Scientific Research Institute of Thermal Processes in Moscow and at 'Fakel' Enterprise in Kaliningrad, Russia. The evaluation was performed using a combination of U.S. and Russian instrumentation and indicated that the actual performance of the thruster appears to be close to the claimed performance. The claimed performance was a specific impulse of 16,000 m/s, an overall efficiency of 50 percent, and an input power of 1.35 kW, and is superior to the performance of western electric thrusters at this specific impulse. The unique performance capabilities of the stationary plasma thruster, along with claims that more than fifty of the 660-W thrusters have been flown in space on Russian spacecraft, attracted the interest of western spacecraft propulsion specialists. A two-phase program was initiated to evaluate the stationary plasma thruster performance and technology. The first phase of this program, to experimentally evaluate the performance of the thruster with U.S. instrumentation in Russia, is described in this report. The second phase objective is to determine the suitability of the stationary plasma thruster technology for use on western spacecraft. This will be accomplished by bringing stationary plasma thrusters to the U.S. for quantification of thruster erosion rates, measurements of the performance variation as a function of long-duration operation, quantification of the exhaust beam divergence angle, and determination of the non-propellant efflux from the thruster. These issues require quantification in order to maximize the probability for user application of the SPT technology and significantly increase the propulsion capabilities of U.S. spacecraft. Brophy, John R. Jet Propulsion Laboratory NAS7-918...

Download or read book A Proposed On Orbit Demonstration of an Advanced Pulsed Plasma Thruster for Small Satellite Applications written by and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The USAF Research Laboratory's (AFRL) Electric Propulsion Group is developing an Advanced pulsed-plasma thruster (PPT) technology demonstration for small satellites. The initial flight opportunity was on MightySat 11.2 - a satellite bus specifically designed to advance AFRL-developed technologies and serve as a risk reduction mission for systems required for TechSat 21. This experiment will demonstrate a high performance PPT, making it a viable thruster for various applications such as orbit raising and initiating and maintaining clusters of small satellites. The experiment will also be the first flight of a new micro-propulsion thruster - a miniaturized version of the PPT, known as the micro-PPT (%-PPT). The u-PPT is ideal for very precise attitude control and pointing, formation flying, and for primary propulsion on microsatellites. A novel on-board diagnostic package will be used to assess the contamination of optical and thermal control surfaces as a result of firing the PPTs. Ground-based observations will also be conducted to assess the on-orbit performance and possible communication impacts of the thruster firings.

Download or read book Characterization of an Exploding Micro wire Pulsed Plasma Thruster written by Diego Mejia Montano and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pulsed Plasma Thrusters typically live in the low-range efficiency realm compared to other types of electric propulsion thrusters. In an attempt to explore if any added benefits could be gained from experimenting with a new propellant type, additional physics had to be incorporated into the classical RLC model approach. A study into modeling how a micro-wire propellant would react when subjected to energy deposition via current-driven heating was undertaken. Once a first-order estimate, verified with computational estimates, was obtained then the classical RLC series circuit model could be used to compare and validate the results obtained from experimentation. It was found that while the proposed propellant type is feasible, it produced performance differences that could not be explained solely by the classical model and a more exhaustive investigation into various phenomena will have to be pursued.

Download or read book Performance Characterization of the High Power Helicon Plasma Thruster with Varying Magnetic Nozzle Configurations written by Ilia Slobodov and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Contamination Study of a Micro Pulsed Plasma Thruster written by Ceylan Kesenek and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Numerical Simulation of Pulsed Plasma Thruster written by Jianjun Wu and published by Springer. This book was released on 2024-11-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book are valuable in gaining an understanding of the working mechanism of pulsed plasma thrusters. It facilitates the evaluation of the thruster's working characteristics and propulsive performance, thereby providing a crucial theoretical foundation and reference for the design, development, and engineering application of pulsed plasma thrusters. Additionally, this book significantly contributes to the advancement of space electric propulsion technology. Researchers and engineers in the aerospace propulsion field can greatly benefit from the insights presented within this book. This is an open access book.

Download or read book written by and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 61 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Miniature Ion Thruster Characterization Via Discharge Plasma Plume and Mission Analyses written by Stephen Anthony Samples and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Miniature Xenon Ion (MiXI) thruster is a 3 cm DC ion thruster developed as low-power, high effciency micro-propulsion. This work focuses on the further development of the MiXI thruster into a viable propulsion technology and investigates the capabilities of MiXI as primary propulsion on CubeSat missions. First, we set the stage for this work by investigating the viability of high dV small spacecraft missions with high effciency, high impulse propulsion, and explore the sensitivities of mission capabilities to thruster properties and performance. One important conclusion is that in the CubeSat form-factor, high impulse micropropulsion enables high dV missions of several km/s with payloads of multiple U volume and multiple kg mass, however these parameters are very sensitive to thruster parameters such as Isp, total effciency, and neutralizer cathode performance. An ion thruster model is then developed to investigate key aspects of miniature DC ion thruster discharge and thruster performance using simplifed descriptions of the plasma behavior to explore a wide range of the thruster design space. Results from this model provide clear boundaries to miniature ion thruster performance while also providing clear pathways for effectively improving thruster design for increased mission capabilities. The results from the model guide an experimental effort to experimentally investigate the 3-ring and Axial Ring-Cusp Hybrid (ARCH) discharge designs for the MiXI thruster. A small plume diagnostics suite consisting of Faraday, emissive, and ExB probes was developed and used to probe the MiXI(ARCH) plume. While no doubly charged ions were detected in the beam at the operating point measured, measurements agree with prior computational work and show a beam flatness of0.6, divergence of 5 degrees, and plume potential of 4.5 V. Later, MiXI(ARCH) was operated with a miniature discharge hollow cathode. Finally, using lessons learned from cathode integration, computational, and analytical modeling, a refned miniature hollow cathode design was developed to further improve discharge and thruster effciency. Through experimental and analytical investigation, mission studies, and further development of critical aspects of the thruster, this work shows that the MiXI thruster is an attractive propulsion option for high effciency, high specifc impulse micropropulsion.

Download or read book Performance Characterization of Simulated Regoliths and Space Debris to Investigate the In situ Resource Utilization Capabilities of a Pulsed Plasma Thruster System written by Michael Siegel Wennerstrom and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 37 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A coaxial pulsed plasma thruster operating at 18 Joules per pulse was discharged over lunar regolith simulant, silica powder, powdered aluminum, and solid Polytetrafluoroethylene to evaluate their potential as minimally refined in-situ propellant resources on other planets or moons for electric propulsion. All the propellants ablated and their plumes were examined using high-speed imaging, spectroscopy, and a double Langmuir probe. Silica produced a greater spectral intensity than lunar regolith. Imaging revealed that micron sized radiating particles are ejected from the anode, cathode, and propellant surfaces with speeds of up to 60 m/s. The double Langmuir probe revealed that in-situ propellants may produce peak charge densities similar to PTFE. Slower populations of charged particles were observed after the initial discharge only in the powdered propellants. The probe also revealed a lower bound to the plasma exit velocity of 6.3 km/s for aluminum, 19.3 km/s for lunar simulant, 17.8 km/s for silicon dioxide, and 20.39 km/s for PTFE.

Download or read book To Mars and Beyond Fast written by Franklin Chang Díaz and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-06-03 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As advanced in-space propulsion moves from science fiction to reality, the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket, or VASIMR® engine, is a leading contender for making 'Mars in a month' a possibility. A paradigm shift in space transportation, this book is an in-depth and compelling story co-written by its inventor. It traces the riveting history of the development of the VASIMR® engine. This landmark technology is grounded in concepts of advanced plasma physics. It cross-pollinates ideas and disciplines to offer a new, practical, and sustainable solution for in-space transportation beyond low Earth orbit in the decades to come. Invented by the co-holder of the world’s spaceflight record, astronaut Franklin Chang Díaz, the VASIMR® engine is developed by Ad Astra Rocket Company in its Texas facilities with NASA as part of the NextSTEP VASIMR® partnership. With adequate funding, the first spaceflight of the VASIMR® engine is imminent. Plasma rockets feature exhaust velocities far above those achievable by conventional chemical rockets. The VASIMR® engine is the most advanced high-power plasma propulsion system operating in the world today and it may place long, fast interplanetary journeys withinour reach in the near future.

Download or read book Assessment of the Plume Characteristics of a Miniaturized Pulsed Plasma Thurster written by Richard Henry [Verfasser] Sypniewski Jr. and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pulsed Plasma Thrusters are one of the most simplistic constructions in the electric propulsion family and are categorized among the electromagnetic class of thrusters. This classification of electromagnetics deals with the underlying physics of the pulsed plasma thruster and is much more complex with less understanding then other electric propulsion systems. However, due to the mechanical simplicity, wide range of specific impulses, non-toxic propellant, and the numerous applications, these thrusters are an ideal candidate for integrating into CubeSats. CubeSats are nanosatellites that are designed in three typical standard sizes (1 Unit, 2 Unit, and 3 Unit), each with standardized footprints. The smallest volumetric dimensions are the 1 Unit CubeSat, which is 10 x 10 x 10 cm. The volume and mass of CubeSats are quite small and therefore the miniaturization of the Pulsed Plasma Thruster is necessary to adhere to these constraints. Current research has shown that when miniaturization of a Pulsed Plasma Thruster there is a tendency for the thruster to work and perform in the electrothermal regime rather than in the electromagnetic one. Understanding which regime the thruster is operating in is critical for understanding how to optimize the design. For example, a thruster operates with higher efficiencies in the electromagnetic regime because there is much less loss from Ohmic heating. Preliminary testing of the Micro-Pulsed Plasma Thruster design was performed by the research company called FOTEC and determined a thruster chamber design. To understand thoroughly the Micro-Pulsed Plasma Thruster, characterization of the thruster and its plume will be conducted experimentally. This characterization will determine parametric features such as current/voltage waveform, electron temperatures, electron densities, and exhaust velocities. Performing the initial characterizations will give insight into the Micro-Pulsed Plasma Thruster and will provide further understanding into the regime that the thruster is operating in. The characteristics that resulted from this thesis concluded that the Micro-Pulsed Plasma Thruster is operating in the electromagnetic regime. This was concluded based on several characteristic traits that only conclude for electromagnetic acceleration mechanisms. These were that the peak currents reached were approximately 5,000 A and the exhaust velocity was in the 50 km/sec range. Further information was measured and the total resistance and inductance was calculated to be 13 m and 24 nH. Details on this information and how it was calculated is discussed in this thesis.*****Pulsed Plasma Thrusters are one of the most simplistic constructions in the electric propulsion family and are categorized among the electromagnetic class of thrusters. This classification of electromagnetics deals with the underlying physics of the pulsed plasma thruster and is much more complex with less understanding then other electric propulsion systems. However, due to the mechanical simplicity, wide range of specific impulses, non-toxic propellant, and the numerous applications, these thrusters are an ideal candidate for integrating into CubeSats. CubeSats are nanosatellites that are designed in three typical standard sizes (1 Unit, 2 Unit, and 3 Unit), each with standardized footprints. The smallest volumetric dimensions are the 1 Unit CubeSat, which is 10 x 10 x 10 cm. The volume and mass of CubeSats are quite small and therefore the miniaturization of the Pulsed Plasma Thruster is necessary to adhere to these constraints. Current research has shown that when miniaturization of a Pulsed Plasma Thruster there is a tendency for the thruster to work and perform in the electrothermal regime rather than in the electromagnetic one. Understanding which regime the thruster is operating in is critical for understanding how to optimize the design. For example, a thruster operates with higher efficiencies in the electromagne