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A performance comparison of pulsed plasma thruster electrode configurations
| Content Provider | NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) |
|---|---|
| Author | Arrington, Lynn A. Pencil, Eric J. Haag, Tom W. Meckel, Nicole J. |
| Copyright Year | 1997 |
| Description | Pulsed plasma thrusters are currently planned on two small satellite missions and proposed for a third. In these missions, the pulsed plasma thruster's unique characteristics will be used variously to provide propulsive attitude control, orbit raising, translation, and precision positioning. Pulsed plasma thrusters are attractive for small satellite applications because they are essentially stand alone devices which eliminate the need for toxic and/or distributed propellant systems. Pulsed plasma thrusters also operate at low power and over a wide power range without loss of performance. As part of the technical development required for the noted missions, an experimental program to optimize performance with respect to electrode configuration was undertaken. One of the planned missions will use pulsed plasma thrusters for orbit raising requiring relatively high thrust and previously tested configurations did not provide this. Also, higher capacitor energies were tested than previously tried for this mission. Multiple configurations were tested and a final configuration was selected for flight hardware development. This paper describes the results of the electrode optimization in detail. |
| File Size | 655097 |
| Page Count | 12 |
| File Format | |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://archive.org/details/NASA_NTRS_Archive_19980137613 |
| Archival Resource Key | ark:/13960/t14n4451r |
| Language | English |
| Publisher Date | 1997-12-01 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Spacecraft Propulsion And Power Positioning Plasma Engines Propellants Performance Tests Attitude Control Toxicity Capacitors Pulse Charging Rocket Engines Hardware High Thrust Plasma Electrodes Ntrs Nasa Technical Reports Server (ntrs) Nasa Technical Reports Server Aerodynamics Aircraft Aerospace Engineering Aerospace Aeronautic Space Science |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Technical Report |
