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Performance of a helicon Hall thruster operating with xenon, argon, and nitrogen

Publication ,  Journal Article
Shabshelowitz, A; Gallimore, AD; Peterson, PY
Published in: Journal of Propulsion and Power
January 1, 2014

The helicon Hall thruster is a two-stage thruster that was developed to investigate whether a radio frequency ionization stage can improve the overall efficiency of a Hall thruster operating at high thrust and low specific impulse. This paper describes an experiment that measured the single-stage and two-stage performance of the helicon Hall thruster operating at 10-25 mg/s anode mass flow rates of xenon at 100-200 V discharge voltages, and also for 6 mg/s of argon at 300 V, and 2.6 mg/s of nitrogen at 200 V. The helicon Hall thruster performance during operation with argon and nitrogen is characterized by low beam divergence efficiency and low propellant utilization efficiency. During two-stage operation, the thrust of the helicon Hall thruster marginally increased with radio frequency power, but the propulsive efficiency and thrust-to-power both decreased with increasing radio frequency power. Probe diagnostics suggest that gains were realized by a slight increase in propellant efficiency, but that the rate of increase was not sufficient to overcome the increase in power. Copyright © 2013 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc.

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Published In

Journal of Propulsion and Power

DOI

EISSN

1533-3876

ISSN

0748-4658

Publication Date

January 1, 2014

Volume

30

Issue

3

Start / End Page

664 / 671

Related Subject Headings

  • Aerospace & Aeronautics
  • 4001 Aerospace engineering
  • 0913 Mechanical Engineering
  • 0901 Aerospace Engineering
  • 0202 Atomic, Molecular, Nuclear, Particle and Plasma Physics
 

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Shabshelowitz, A., Gallimore, A. D., & Peterson, P. Y. (2014). Performance of a helicon Hall thruster operating with xenon, argon, and nitrogen. Journal of Propulsion and Power, 30(3), 664–671. https://doi.org/10.2514/1.B35041
Shabshelowitz, A., A. D. Gallimore, and P. Y. Peterson. “Performance of a helicon Hall thruster operating with xenon, argon, and nitrogen.” Journal of Propulsion and Power 30, no. 3 (January 1, 2014): 664–71. https://doi.org/10.2514/1.B35041.
Shabshelowitz A, Gallimore AD, Peterson PY. Performance of a helicon Hall thruster operating with xenon, argon, and nitrogen. Journal of Propulsion and Power. 2014 Jan 1;30(3):664–71.
Shabshelowitz, A., et al. “Performance of a helicon Hall thruster operating with xenon, argon, and nitrogen.” Journal of Propulsion and Power, vol. 30, no. 3, Jan. 2014, pp. 664–71. Scopus, doi:10.2514/1.B35041.
Shabshelowitz A, Gallimore AD, Peterson PY. Performance of a helicon Hall thruster operating with xenon, argon, and nitrogen. Journal of Propulsion and Power. 2014 Jan 1;30(3):664–671.

Published In

Journal of Propulsion and Power

DOI

EISSN

1533-3876

ISSN

0748-4658

Publication Date

January 1, 2014

Volume

30

Issue

3

Start / End Page

664 / 671

Related Subject Headings

  • Aerospace & Aeronautics
  • 4001 Aerospace engineering
  • 0913 Mechanical Engineering
  • 0901 Aerospace Engineering
  • 0202 Atomic, Molecular, Nuclear, Particle and Plasma Physics