Experimental Study on the Effects of Discharge Chamber Length on 5 cm Radio-Frequency Ion Thruster

• Published in: Microgravity science and technology Vol. 32; no. 3; pp. 513 - 520
• Main Authors: Ma, Longfei, He, Jianwu, Duan, Li, Kang, Qi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.06.2020; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Aerospace Technology and Astronautics; Classical and Continuum Physics; Engineering; Flow velocity; Ion optics; Ionization; Microgravity; Neutral particles; Original Article; Radio frequency; Space Exploration and Astronautics; Space science; Space Sciences (including Extraterrestrial Physics; Thirty Years of Microgravity Research - A Topical Collection Dedicated to J. C. Legros; Microgravity condition; Radio-frequency ion thruster; Discharge chamber length; Electron density
• ISSN: 0938-0108; 1875-0494
• DOI: 10.1007/s12217-020-09785-0

For keeping microgravity level of microgravity and space science satellites, a kind of electric thruster, the radio-frequency ion thruster (RIT) has been designed and applied. The RIT produces thrust through ionizing neutral particles in the discharge chamber and extracting ions by the ion optics system. The length of discharge chamber affects the ionization of neutral particles as well as the performance of RIT. In this paper, an experimental study has been carried out for analyzing the influence of discharge chamber length. In the experiment, the RIT-5 with various discharge chamber lengths, 27.6 mm, 30.0 mm, 31.9 mm, 35.5 mm, 40.0 mm, has different performances under the same condition. With the same radio frequency power and propellant flow rate, the RIT-5 has the optimal performance in beam current and efficiency when the discharge chamber length is 30.0 mm or 31.9 mm.