Development of Electrothermal Pulsed Plasma Thrusters for Osaka-Institute-of-Technology Electric-Rocket-Engine onboard Small Space Ship

Journal Article · Wed Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 2008 · AIP Conference Proceedings

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3076608· OSTI ID:21254969

Ishii, Yushuke; Yamamoto, Tsuyoshi; Yamada, Minetsugu; Tahara, Hirokazu ^[1]

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1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Osaka Institute of Technology 5-16-1 Omiya, Asahi-Ku, Osaka 535-8585 (Japan)

The Project of Osaka-Institute-of-Technology Electric-Rocket-Engine onboard Small Space Ship (PROITERES) was started at Osaka Institute of Technology. In PROITERES, a 10-kg small satellite with electrothermal pulsed plasma thrusters (PPTs), named JOSHO, will be launched in 2010. The main mission is powered flight of small satellite by electric thruster itself. Electrothermal PPTs were studied with both experiments and numerical simulations. An electrothermal PPT with a side-fed propellant feeding mechanism achieved a total impulse of 3.6 Ns with a repetitive 10000-shot operation. An unsteady numerical simulation showed the existence of considerable amount of ablation delaying to the discharge. However, it was also shown that this phenomenon should not be regarded as the 'late time ablation' for electrothermal PPTs.

• OSTI ID: 21254969
• Journal Information: AIP Conference Proceedings, Journal Name: AIP Conference Proceedings Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 1084; ISSN 0094-243X; ISSN APCPCS
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ABLATION
INTERPLANETARY SPACE
PLANETARY ATMOSPHERES
PLASMA
PROPULSION
ROCKET ENGINES
SATELLITES
SIMULATION
SPACE VEHICLES
THERMOELECTRIC CONVERSION
THRUSTERS