Overview of Iodine Propellant Hall Thruster Development Activities at NASA Glenn Research Center

Abstract

NASA is continuing to invest in advancingHall thruster technologies for implementation in commercial and government missions. There have been several recent iodine Hall propulsion system development activities performed by the team of the NASA Glenn Research Center, the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, and Busek Co. Inc. In particular, the work focused on qualification of the 200 W Busek BHT-200-I and the continued development of the 600 W BHT-600-I Hall thruster propulsion systems. This paper presents an overview of these development activities and also reports on the results of short duration tests that were performed on the engineering model BHT-200-I and the development model BHT-600-I Hall thrusters.

CubeSat Lunar Positioning System Enabled by Novel On-Board Electric Propulsion

“…2) Propellant storage: CubeSat dedicated propulsion systems are likely to use on Iodine as a propellant [30]. For a CubeSat ECRA, aside from the inherent benefits of this propellant in terms of reduced ionization cost and improved ion acceleration, Iodine reduces the volume and complexity associated with pressurized propellant storage.…”

Optimal SEP Trajectories from Earth to Jupiter with Triple Flyby Capture

“…The model used here assumes a BHT-600 thruster is used upon arrival at Jupiter from an interplanetary trajectory with a power range of 0.49 to 1 kW. Specific impulse and efficiency for the BHT-600 as given by Kamhawi et al [10] are used in the modeling. CBE wet mass of 1970 kg and the margin mass value of 415 kg given by Strange et al in the Mass Estimate List for their proposed mission was used as a baseline for the initial mass of the proposed craft.…”

Secondary electron emission due to multi-species iodine ion bombardment of different target materials

“…In recent years, iodine has gained increasing attention in the plasma physics and space propulsion communities due to new industrial processes, and the advantages it offers as a propellant for plasma-based propulsion systems, such as gridded ion 1,2 , Hall-effect thrusters 3,4 and possibly other systems such as MPD 5 and helicon plasma thrusters 6 . Typically xenon or krypton is used as a propellant for such thrusters due to their inert chemical nature, relatively low ionization energy and high atomic mass (which enhances thruster efficiency and performance).…”