Design and demonstration of a micro air-fed magnetoplasmadynamic thruster for small satellites

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Design and demonstration of a micro air-fed magnetoplasmadynamic thruster for small satellites

Wang, Zihao / Eun, Youngho / Wu, Xiaofeng

Abstract This paper developed and tested a micro air-fed magnetoplasmadynamic thruster for small satellites. The thruster is a type of miniaturized electric propulsion system designed base on conventional full scale magnetoplasmadynamic thruster that operates at hundreds of kilowatts power. The thruster is designed and tested using normal air as the propellant under the pulse operation mode on a calibrated micro-force measurement thruster stand. The experiments revealed that the thruster can generate a 34.534 $μ$ Ns impulse bit with an average power input of 1.857 ± 0.0679 W and thrust to power ratio of 8.266 $μ$ N/W, and the specific impulse is calculated to be 2319 s with the thruster efficiency of 9.402%, which is quite competitive comparing with other solid-state and liquid-fed pulse-mode thrusters. This paper presents the design and test results for the thruster under a low power level as well as an analysis of its problems and limitations with corresponding future research and optimization directions noted at the end.

Highlights • A micro air-fed magnetoplasmadynamic thruster was designed and tested. • Air-fed design enables possibility of low-earth-orbit air-breathing operation mode. • The thruster tested in this paper can generate a single impulse of 34.534 $μ$ Ns.