Thrust Performance of a Low Power Hall Thruster

Abstract

For the application of Hall thrusters to small satellites, we have been developing a low power Hall thruster. As an initial test, we evaluated the thrust performance of a 50 W class miniature Hall thruster developed at Kyushu University. The outer diameter and the length of the acceleration channel are 18 mm and 7 mm, respectively. A torsional type thrust stand was developed, since the estimated thrust is 1-3 mN, which is too small to be measured by means of a conventional pendulum type thrust stand for Hall thrusts. The uncertainty of this thrust stand is less than 10% at 2 mN with calibration. The thrust, the discharge current, specific impulse and the thrust efficiency at xenon mass flow rate of 0.30 mg/s and discharge voltage of 125 V were 1.7 mN, 0.35 A, 600 sec and 11.4%, respectively. The thrust increased with an increase in discharge voltage and the thrust became 3.1 mN at discharge voltage of 250 V.

Rayleigh Scattering Measurement of Neutral Atom Number Density Downstream of a Hall Thruster under Cold Flow Conditions

“…Figure 2 shows the miniature Hall thruster developed at Kyushu University. 27) The anode is located 9 mm upstream of the thruster exit face, and the outer acceleration channel diameter is 19 mm. Details and performance are presented in Ref.…”

Performance of a Miniature Hall Thruster and an In-house PPU

“…Hall thrusters are an attractive candidate for these small propulsion systems since they meet the requirements. Various compact Hall thrusters [4][5][6][7][8][9][10] have been developed and shown good performance, although the thruster lifetime is limited by degradation related to miniaturization. To extend the lifetime of Hall thrusters, a technology called "magnetic shielding" has been proposed.…”