Experimental study of a porous electrospray thruster with different number of emitter-strips

Abstract

The electrospray thruster is becoming popular in space propulsion due to its low power and high specific impulse. Before this work, an electrospray thruster based on a porous emitter was developed. In order to achieve larger and more stable thrust, the thruster was redesigned, and the influence of the space between strips on thrust was studied. Four types of emitter were tested, and they had 1, 3, 4 and 14 emitter-strips on the emission surface of the same size respectively. According to the experimental results, the maximum extraction voltage and emission current of the four thrusters are different under stable operational conditions. The measured stable emission currents and extraction voltages were −500 μA/−5000 V, −1570 μA/−3800 V, −1200 μA/ −3800 V, and −650 μA/−4500 V, respectively. Increasing the number of strips may not result in the emission current increasing, but changing the stable operational range of the emission current per strip and the extraction voltage. The maximum stable operational extraction voltages of 3 and 4 emitter-strips are lower than those of 1 and 14 emitter-strips, but the emission currents are higher than those of 1 and 14 emitter-strips. Time-of-flight mass spectrometry was used to analyze the mass distribution and obtain the performance of the thruster in the case of thrusters with 1 and 3 emitter-strips. Both of their plumes were composed of very small ion cluster (the pure-ion regime), and their thrusts were 80.1 μN, 219.2 μN with specific impulses of 5774 s, 5047 s, respectively.

Study on the plume self-neutralization of ionic liquid electrospray thruster based on median potential

“…Due to the emission of the plate, the current at some angles such as 15 • and 30 • is too large. Consistent with the description in the literature [41], the model's use of a single emissive stage results in a more concentrated plume that decreases at the boundary.…”

Special issue on selected papers from CEPC 2020

“…The conference contains 6 plenary talks, 20 invited talks, 92 oral presentations, which covers 10 topics, including (1) spacecraft mission planning and electric propulsion system applications; This special issue in the journal of Plasma Science and Technology (PST) is organized from the papers presented in the CEPC 2020. Interested readers can find that the papers concerning the performance and lifetime study of an ion thruster [1], matching characteristics of magnetic field configuration and chamfered channel wall in a magnetically shielded Hall thruster [2], far-field plasma characteristics of a low power Hall thruster [3], grid erosion of a field emission electric propulsion [4], sub-micron-Newton scale thrust measurement system for micro electric thrusters [5], arc anode attachment characteristics [6], magnetically levitated testbed with composite superconductor bearing for micro thrust measurement [7], the fast prediction method of SF-MPD performance based on a plasma 1009-0630/21/100101+02$33.00 equilibrium model [8], ablation characteristics of a laser-assisted pulsed plasma thruster with metal propellant [9], experimental study of an electrospray thruster based on porous media [10]. These papers reflect the latest research progress on electric propulsion technology in universities, research institutes and aerospace industry of China.…”