SPT100 life test with single cathode up to total impulse two million NSEC

Gnizdor, R. Yu.; Kozubsky, K. N.; Koryakin, A.; Maslennikov, N.; Pridannikov, S. Yu.; Day, Michael

doi:10.2514/6.1998-3790

Cited by 11 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…9 To date, approximately 200 SPT-100s have flown, with reports indicating nominal performance in orbit. [9][10][11][12][13] The SPT-100 was qualified for flight on Western spacecraft through testing in the 1990s at Fakel, [14][15][16] at the NASA Glenn Research Center, 17 and at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 18 Between them, they covered vacuum facility background pressures ranging from 4.3×10 -4 to 7.5×10 -3 Pa (3.2×10 -6 to 5.6×10 -5 Torr), however it is not clear that trends in thruster performance as a function of background pressure can be reliably established from those tests since the same thruster and cathode flow fraction were not used in all cases.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Background Pressure on SPT-100 Hall Thruster Performance

Diamant¹,

Liang²,

Corey³

2014

50th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference

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A flight-model SPT-100 Hall thruster from the Fakel Experimental and Design Bureau was characterized with respect to performance and plume properties at The Aerospace Corporation and at L-3 Electron Technologies, Inc. over vacuum facility background pressures ranging from 2.3×10 -4 to 9.5×10 -3 Pa (1.7×10 -6 to 7.1×10 -5 Torr). Thrust and xenon mass flow rate measured at both facilities agreed to within the measurement uncertainties. Thrust decayed exponentially, while flow rate increased linearly with decreasing pressure. Using simple curve-fits for extrapolation, thrust, specific impulse, efficiency, and flow rate were projected to change by -4, -10, -14, and 7% respectively at zero pressure relative to 6.7×10 -3 Pa (5.0×10 -5 Torr). A decrease in net ion accelerating voltage and an increase in plume divergence were identified as contributors to decreased thrust with decreasing pressure. The amplitude of discharge current oscillations decreased linearly with decreasing background pressure, while the center frequency of the oscillations also decreased, from 26 to 16.5 kHz, but in non-linear fashion. Neutral density near the exit plane of Hall thrusters can be quite low, O(10 18 ) m -3 , such that background neutrals from the residual gas in the vacuum chamber may significantly influence ionization and conduction there.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Background Pressure on SPT-100 Hall Thruster Performance

Diamant¹,

Liang²,

Corey³

2014

50th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference

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“…Tests have validated the SPT-100 life time as exceeding 2.71 million N-s (equivalent to approximately 9000 hours of operational time) for xenon at the nominal condition. 18,11 This boundary is also marked in red for reference. Some krypton operating conditions within these boundaries may be feasible for completing this mission.…”

Section: Krypton Mission Examplementioning

confidence: 99%

A Performance and Plume Comparison of Xenon and Krypton Propellant on the SPT-100

Nakles¹,

Hargus²,

Delgado³

et al. 2012

48th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference &Amp;amp; Exhibit

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The use of krypton as an alternative to xenon for Hall thruster propellant is an interesting option for satellite system designers due to its lower cost. However, this cost-savings comes at the expense of thrust efficiency. Reduction in efficiency can be caused by energy losses from Joule heating, radiation, and the ionization process as well as degradation of plume quality from an increase in velocity distribution spread (most often from an increase in multiply charged ion populations) and geometric beam divergence. 1 In order to quantify this performance reduction for the case of the flight model SPT-100 HET (1.35 kW), performance measurements were made using an inverted pendulum thrust stand. The plume was also characterized by a Faraday probe and RPA measurements to examine how plume qualities change with operating condition. Krypton operating conditions were tested over a large range of operating powers from 800 W to 3.9 kW. Analysis of how performance is impacted by propellant and operating condition is presented. A simple mission analysis was done based on the performance measurements to evaluate the practicality of krypton propellant for an SPT-100 subsystem using krypton propellant for north-south station keeping (NSSK) for a typical communications spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit.Nomenclature e elementary charge g e gravitational constant I axial axial component of integrated thruster beam current I b integrated thruster beam current I d anode discharge current I sp specific impulse j plume charge flux m atomic masṡ m a anode propellant mass flow ratė m i anode ion mass flow rate M 0 initial spacecraft mass M P propellant mass for a spacecraft P anode power * Research Engineer, AFRL/RZSS, q multiple for units of elementary charge r radial distance in thruster coordinate system V ion acceleration voltage V mean ion acceleration voltage from a distribution function V d anode discharge voltage V 0 ion retarding grid potential for retarding potential analyzer Γ current collected by retarding potential analyzer ∆V average ion acceleration voltage for the thruster plume or velocity change for a spacecraft η a anode efficiency θ angular position in thruster coordinate system or thruster cant angle λ plume momentum divergence half-angle, λ = arccos(< cos(θ) > mv ) ≈ arccos(< cos(θ) > j ) Φ P propellant utilization efficiency Ψ B beam efficiency (divergence loss factor) <> j charge flux weighted average quantity in the plume <> m mass weighted average quantity in the plume <>mv momentum weighted average quantity in the plume Introduction F or a number of engineering reasons, xenon is the propellant of choice for Hall effect thrusters. These include its high mass (131 amu) and its relatively low ionization potential (12.1 eV). Furthermore, the inert nature of xenon eliminates the safety concerns that plagued early electrostatic propulsion efforts when mercury and cesium were the propellants of choice. Although xenon is a noble gas, it is the most massive, and due to its non-ideal gas behavior, it is possible to...

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“…10.4 [46] , 6 -110 [46] SPT-100 [47] >9,000 ‡,×, [6,48] 7,515 <7,000 [49] 1.35 10.1 [50] borosil [51] <50, 14.5 [52] , 5 [53] EM-900 [54] 3,000 500…”

Section: Bn -mentioning

confidence: 99%

Erosion Measurements in a Low-Power Cusped-Field Plasma Thruster

Gildea

Matlock

Martı́nez-Sánchez

et al. 2013

Journal of Propulsion and Power

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SPT100 life test with single cathode up to total impulse two million NSEC

Cited by 11 publications

References 2 publications

The Effect of Background Pressure on SPT-100 Hall Thruster Performance

The Effect of Background Pressure on SPT-100 Hall Thruster Performance

A Performance and Plume Comparison of Xenon and Krypton Propellant on the SPT-100

Erosion Measurements in a Low-Power Cusped-Field Plasma Thruster

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