Demonstration of electric micropropulsion multimodality.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 36070382.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.adc9850 and PMC identifier 9451150.
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Abstract
Electric propulsion has become popular nowadays owing to the trend of miniaturizing the size and mass of satellites. However, the main drawback of the most popular approach-Hall thrusters-is that their efficiency and thrust-to-power ratio (TPR) markedly deteriorate when its size and power level are reduced. Here, we demonstrate an alternative approach-a minute low-power (<50 W), lightweight (~100 g), two-stage propulsion system. The system is based on a micro-cathode vacuum arc thruster with magnetoplasmadynamic second stage (μCAT-MPD), which achieves the following parameters: a thrust of up to 1.7 mN at a TPR of 37 μN/W and an efficiency of ~50%. A μCAT-MPD system, in addition to "traditional" inverse, displays the anomalous direct (growing) "TPR versus specific impulse <i>I</i><sub>sp</sub>" trend at high <i>I</i><sub>sp</sub> values and allows multimodality at high efficiency.