Emission Characteristics of Passively Fed Electrospray Microthrusters with Propellant Reservoirs
Name
Krejci-et-al--iEPS characteristics-JSR2017.pdf
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8.26 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
98db6942e6c82a7d9a5108f35fa2841c
Author(s)
Thomas, Robert
Haag, Thomas
Krejci, David
Mier Hicks, Fernando
Lozano, Paulo C
Date Issued
July 2017
Journal
Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets
Publisher
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Citation
Krejci, David et al. “Emission Characteristics of Passively Fed Electrospray Microthrusters with Propellant Reservoirs.” Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets 54.2 (2017): 447–458.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
The characterization of a miniaturized ionic liquid electrospray thruster for nanosatellite applications is presented. The thruster investigated features an emitter array of 480 emitter tips per square centimeter and a 1 cm[superscript 3] propellant tank with an entirely passive propellant supply; it is operated at a power level of less than 0.15 W. The paper presents energy- and mass-resolving beam spectroscopy of the packaged thruster system, as well as two independent thrust measurements. This allows derivation of thruster performance parameters under realistic firing conditions, including individual thruster efficiency contributions, specific impulse, and thrust. The total thruster efficiencies of 36%; specific impulse of ∼760 s, including all losses; and thrust of 11–12.5 μN are presented at emission currents of 150 μA for a device of ∼1 cm[superscript 2]. The current emission data without current decay of ∼90 h are presented with a maximum of 172 h.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.2514/1.A33531
