Previous work on electric propulsion systems within the UK has been concerned only with ion thrusters with thrust levels of a few tens of millinewtons, even though early planning assigned an orbit-raising function to the thruster. Recently, however, there has been renewed interest in the UK in the use of ion thrusters for orbit-raising of low Earth platforms, drag compensation of large spacecraft and general control and positioning tasks for future space systems. Also, in Europe, there is increasing interest in high energy science missions. All these applications require thrust levels of a few hundred millinewtons. It was decided, therefore, to develop a 25 centimetre diameter Kaufman-type ion thruster, with a nominal thrust of 200 mN operating with xenon as propellant, for this class of application. The present paper describes the thruster design and initial test results.
A UK large diameter ion thruster for primary propulsion
Britisches Ionentriebwerk grossen Durchmessers fuer Primaerantrieb
AIAA-Papers ; May ; 1-9
1987
9 Seiten, 8 Bilder, 2 Tabellen, 20 Quellen
Aufsatz (Konferenz)
Englisch
A UK large diameter ion thruster for primary propulsion
AIAA | 1987
|An ion thruster module for primary propulsion systems
AIAA | 1972
|Multi-Thruster Propulsion Apparatus
NTRS | 2016
|