The performance and erosion behavior of a solid teflon pulsed plasma thruster were determined when the accelerator nozzle was operated either as a short pulse discharge thruster or as a quasi-steady thruster. Comparisons were made for two different initial discharge energy levels and also for breech propellant feed and side propellant feed configurations. The limited number of test results showed thrust efficiency, based upon directly measured thrust, of short pulse discharge operation to be better than quasi-steady operation when the comparison is made at the same specific impulse. Short pulse operation also experienced less erosion.
A comparison of quasi-steady with short-pulse discharge thruster operation.
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Electric Propulsion Conference ; 1972 ; Bethesda, MD
1972-04-01
Conference paper
No indication
English