Development &amp; Qualification Status of the PPS<sup>®</sup>5000 Hall Thruster Unit

Duchemin, Olivier; Rabin, Julien; Balika, Lahib; Diome, Mathieu; Vuglec, Daniel; Cavelan, Xavier; Leroi, Vaitua

doi:10.2514/6.2018-4420

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Hall thrusters are candidates for future mission applications [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is developing a 6 kW Hall thruster that will be demonstrated on the Engineering Test Satellite-9 (ETS-9) [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Control algorithm for a 6 kW hall thruster

et al. 2022

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This paper presents a control algorithm for ensuring the stable operation of a 6 kW Hall thruster. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is developing a “wide-range” power processing unit (PPU) to power a 6 kW Hall thruster system, a candidate for all-electric satellites. The PPU provides discharge oscillation, power, and discharge current control. The increments in the control loop are fixed, so the PPU digital controller does not need to calculate them, and the algorithm’s computational complexity is minimal. Results of integration tests on the 6 kW Hall thruster and the PPU breadboard model showed that the three control functions run correctly. The total controlled PPU power was adjusted in the range of 3.45–3.55 kW under constant power control with a target of 3.5 kW. Oscillations of ± 0.05 kW around the target power are acceptable. 70% of the peaks in the discharge current acquired for 100 ms exceeded the limit of 1.5A. Discharge oscillation control varied the coil magnetic field and reduced them to 0%. The PPU successfully controlled the coil current, reducing the discharge current from 13.7 A to 13 A. The propulsion efficiency increased from 59% to 60.5%.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Control algorithm for a 6 kW hall thruster

et al. 2022

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“…Hall effect thrusters then appear as the most reliable technology for this particular application. Although these thrusters provided satisfactory performance in previous launches [7,8], some phenomena within the discharge chamber are still poorly understood. Among these, the erosion observed on ceramics of the discharge chamber [9] or the appearance of spurious instabilities [10][11][12][13][14] require detailed investigation to guarantee the durability of the engine.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A fluid formalism for low-temperature plasma flows dedicated to space propulsion in an unstructured high performance computing solver

Joncquieres

Vermorel

Cuenot

2020

Plasma Sources Sci. Technol.

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With the increased interest in electric propulsion for space applications, a wide variety of electric thrusters have emerged. For many years, Hall effect thrusters have been the selected technology to sustain observation and telecommunication satellites thanks to their advantageous service lifetime, their high specific impulse and high power to thrust ratio. Despite several studies on the topic, the Hall thruster electric discharge remains still poorly understood. With the increase of available computing resources, numerical simulation becomes an interesting tool in order to explain some complex plasma phenomena. In this paper, a fluid model for plasma flows is presented for the numerical simulation of space thrusters. Fluid solvers often exhibit strong hypotheses on electron dynamics via the drift-diffusion approximation. Some of them use a quasi-neutral assumption for the electric field which is not adapted near walls due to the presence of sheaths. In the present model, all these simplifications are removed and the full set of plasma equations is considered for the simulation of low-temperature plasma flows inside a Hall thruster chamber. This model is implemented in the unstructured industrial solver AVIP, efficient on large clusters and adapted to complex geometries. Electrical sheaths are taken into account as well as magnetic field and majors collision processes. A particular attention is paid on a precise expression of the different source terms for elastic an inelastic processes. The whole system of equations with adapted boundary conditions is challenged with a simulation of a realistic 2D r–z Hall thruster configuration. The full-fluid simulation exhibits a correct behavior of plasma characteristics inside a Hall effect thruster. Comparisons with results from the literature exhibit a good ability of AVIP to model the plasma inside the ionization chamber. Finally a specific attention was brought to the analysis of the thruster performances.

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