The characterization of a miniaturized ionic liquid electrospray thruster for nanosatellite applications is presented. The thruster investigated features an emitter array of 480 emitter tips per square centimeter and a 1    cm 3 propellant tank with an entirely passive propellant supply; it is operated at a power level of less than 0.15 W. The paper presents energy- and mass-resolving beam spectroscopy of the packaged thruster system, as well as two independent thrust measurements. This allows derivation of thruster performance parameters under realistic firing conditions, including individual thruster efficiency contributions, specific impulse, and thrust. The total thruster efficiencies of 36%; specific impulse of 760    s , including all losses; and thrust of 11 12.5    μ N are presented at emission currents of 150    μ A for a device of 1    cm 2 . The current emission data without current decay of 90    h are presented with a maximum of 172 h.


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    Title :

    Emission Characteristics of Passively Fed Electrospray Microthrusters with Propellant Reservoirs


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2017-03-01




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English





    Emission Characteristics of Passively Fed Electrospray Microthrusters with Propellant Reservoirs

    Thomas, Robert / Haag, Thomas / Krejci, David et al. | DSpace@MIT | 2017

    Free access


    Indium Field Emission Microthrusters

    Ruedenauer, F. G. / Fehringer, M. / Steiger, W. | British Library Online Contents | 1997


    Indium Field Emission Microthrusters

    Ruedenauer, F. G. / Fehringer, M. / Steiger, W. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 1997