The experience of hall thruster research and development
- Paper number
IAC-06-C4.4.08
- Author
Dr. Oleg A. Gorshkov, Keldysh Research Center, Russia
- Coauthor
Dr. Anatoly Koroteev, Keldysh Research Center, Russia
- Coauthor
Dr. Oleg A. Gorshkov, Keldysh Research Center, Russia
- Coauthor
Mr. Viatcheslav Muravlev, Keldysh Research Center, Russia
- Year
2006
- Abstract
Expanding of electric propulsion (EP) application on the spacecrafts (SC) is one of the main tendencies of modern stage of space activity in the world. Nowadays the leading space countries, following Russia, start practical application of Hall effect thrusters in space solving scientific as well as commercial tasks. In particular, three companies-developers of SC, being the members of five world leaders of satellites manufacturing, started regular application of Hall effect EP on their SC in 2004. They are – SS/Loral in the USA, EADS Astrium and Alcatel Space in Europe. In all the instances the electric propulsion system is based upon the Russian thrusters SPT-100, applied on Russian SC since 1994. Further SC development in areas of increase of power per mass ratio, active lifetime, payload share in SC mass etc. stimulates the creation of new generation Hall effect thrusters. Their main features are increased specific impulse, ability of effective operation in broad range of power and lifetime up to 8000-10000 hours. In this paper the information on Keldysh Research Center activity in Hall effect thrusters’ area in part of research as well as in part of thrusters flight models development is presented. The Hall effect thruster research program is aimed to solve virtually all the key problems of new generation thruster development. In particular the influence of magnetic field topology on discharge characteristics is investigated to find the key magnetic field parameters for thruster operation optimization. The magnetic field criteria based on the effectiveness of electron capture in the ionization and acceleration zones are discussed. The non-contact optical diagnosis methods are developed to measure the channel wall erosion rate in real time regime. These measurements are very important to determine the lifetime characteristics of the thruster. The methods of accelerated testing are developed to decrease the prolonged life tests duration. In the basis of these methods lies the computational model describing the discharge chamber wall profile evolution during prolonged operation. Fully kinetic model of Hall effect thruster plasma processes is developed and being constantly improved as a part of numerical simulation research area. This model allows plasma parameters monitoring in time-dependent case without taking any substantial assumption about the physical problem definition. Besides, the semi-empirical one dimensional discharge model is developed. This model allows the determination of axial plasma parameters in discharge chamber basing upon the experimentally measured energy spectrum of ions in the plasma plume out of thruster. In a frame of Hall effect thruster flight models development program the thrusters of different dimension-type with power from 50 W to 6 kW are developed. They are low power thrusters (up to 1 kW) – KM-32, KM-45, KM-60, medium power hall thrusters (1-2,5 kW) – KM-4, KM-5, KM-88 and increased power thrusters – KM-6, KM-7. The KM-4, KM-5, KM-7, and KM-45 thrusters had successfully passed the qualification tests. In present time Hall effect thruster KM-5 is passing flight tests on board of geostationary SC “Express-A” developed by the NPO PM.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-06-C4.4.08.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
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