A fundamental study of a forward laser accelerated plasma thruster was conducted. In order to evaluate thrust performances of the thruster, a time‐of‐flight measurement was conducted for an Al‐foil target irradiated with an Nd:YAG laser of 1J/pulse with pulse‐width of 10nsec. From the measurement, the average plasma speed was about 53 km/sec. Time‐gated imaging of the plasma with an ICCD camera was also conducted. From the observation, rapid plasmas were observed on both sides of the target. Each image from the ICCD camera was processed by an image processing software into an emission intensity distribution of the plasma at every 10nsec. Axial velocity of the plasma was estimated from the temporal evolution of the plasma edge. The average and maximum plasma expansion velocities in a forward direction were estimated about 40 km/s and 160 km/sec, respectively.
Ion Emission Characteristics of a Forward Laser Accelerated Plasma Thruster
BEAMED ENERGY PROPULSION: Third International Symposium on Beamed Energy Propulsion ; 2004 ; Troy, New York (USA)
AIP Conference Proceedings ; 766 , 1 ; 463-473
2005-04-27
11 pages
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
Ion Emission Characteristics of a Forward Laser Accelerated Plasma Thruster
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