Experimental study on 10 cm ion thruster using simulated environmental gas working matter

Air breathing electric propulsion technology is one kind of resource in-situ utilizing spacecraft power technology, which can reduce launching cost, increase the spacecraft’s lifetime and has broad application prospect. Environmental gas electric thruster has low efficiency compared with traditional Xe thruster. The electric thruster’s efficiency is seen as the most important factor determining whether the air breathing electric propulsion technology is feasible. In this paper, A 10 cm Kaufman electric thruster was used for experimental study with environmental gas working matter, and the hollow cathode used Xe propellant. In this paper, the relationships between the thruster’s efficiency and the mass flow rate, screen grid voltage and anode voltage were studied. The rule of the hollow cathode anode voltage changing with time in the environmental gas was also studied. The obtained results indicate that Kaufman electric thruster has relative high efficiency with environmental gas and suitable for air breathing electric propulsion technology, the changing rules of the electric thruster’s efficiency can be used as the reference for the thruster optimization. In the 200 hours time scale, the performance of the hollow cathode was stable and can be used for in-orbit demonstration.