Ablative PPT. New Quality, New Perspectives

Paper number

IAC-05-C4.4.06

Author

Prof. Garri Popov, RIAME MAI, Russia

Year

2005

Abstract

Progress in engineering, as weIl as requirements for abrupt reduction of space mission cost are the primary factors defining miniaturization of orbital spacecraft. ln the nearest perspective, considerable part of target tasks in space will be solved by low-orbit mini and micro spacecrafts (MSC) with the mass of up to 200 kg and long periods of active life. At that, typical values of MSC characteristic velocity will be close to 70-100 mis that practically excluding propulsion systems (PS) with low specific impulse from consideration and opening new scopes for electricpropulsions.
Analysis for shows that MSC with the mass from 200 down to 20 kg Tequire development of EPS capable to operate efficiently at the power consumption from several units to some tens of Watt. Many specialists agree in their opinions that ablative pulsed plasma thruster (APPT) with the stored energy of (50-20) J operating with solid dielectric propellant is the most perspective for providing control for such spacecraft. Such thrusters have a number of extremely important characteristics arising from ils nature:
. capability for stable operation at power consumption for some parts to several tens of Watt, i.e. within that power range required for mini and micro spacecraft control, within which ail thrusters being adequate to the orbit correction tasks operate unsatisfactorily;
. low (from 1.5 mNs to 0.5 mNs) proportioned thrust impu.lse bit allowing to provide precision control for the MSC
attitude in orbit at substantial propellant saving;
. unique possibility to adjust thrust of the thruster within the broad range by varying frequency of thruster
operations;
. design, technologic and operational simplicitystipulating reliability and low cost of production and operation for
such thrusters.
Efficiency of the APPT operating process is in many respects defined by the parameters of ils external circuit. As a result of complex calculation and experimental studies for plasma parameters, fulfilled by RIAME, an adequate physical model for the processes in the thruster channel was obtained. A possibility was shown to reach high values for APPT thrust efficiency due to the transfer from the damping oscillating discharge process to the quasi-aperiodic one.

Abstract document

IAC-05-C4.4.06.pdf

Manuscript document

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