The NEXT Long-Duration Test is part of a comprehensive thruster service life assessment intended to demonstrate overall throughput capability, validate service life models, quantify wear rates as a function of time and operating condition, and identify any unknown life-limiting mechanisms. The test was voluntarily terminated in April 2014 after demonstrating 51,184 hours of high-voltage operation, 918 kg of propellant throughput, and 35.5 MN-s of total impulse. The post-test inspection of the thruster hardware began shortly afterwards with a combination of non-destructive and destructive analysis techniques, and is presently nearing completion. This presentation presents relevant results of the post-test inspection for both discharge and neutralizer cathodes.


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    Title :

    Post-Test Inspection of NASA's Evolutionary Xenon Thruster Long-Duration Test Hardware: Discharge and Neutralizer Cathodes


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    52nd AIAA/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference ; 2016 ; Salt Lake City, UT, United States


    Publication date :

    2016-07-25


    Type of media :

    Miscellaneous


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English