Electric thruster models for multimegawatt nuclear electric propulsion mission design

Conference · Sat Jan 05 04:00:00 EST 1991 · AIP Conference Proceedings (American Institute of Physics); (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.40150· OSTI ID:5484702

Leifer, S D; Blandino, J J; Sercel, J C ^[1]

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1. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 911109 (US)

Three types of electric thrusters currently under development at JPL have potential to support future missions which utilize multimegawatt nuclear electric propulsion. These electric thrusters are the electron bombardment ion thruster, the magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD) thruster, and the electron-cyclotron-resonance (ECR) thruster. The electron bombardment ion thruster is a relatively mature technology which has been developed for operation at kilowatt power levels but will require new development for application in the multimegawatt regime. The MPD engine represents a technology which may be very well suited to steady-state multimegawatt applications but which has been limited to sub-scale (100's of kW) and pulsed (MW) testing thus far. The ECR plasma engine represents a class of very promising new concepts which are still in the basic research phase of development, but which may possess important fundamental advantages over other electric thruster technologies. In this paper, models of these thrusters are described and used to make projections of thruster specific mass, efficiency, and power handling capacity for operation in the multimegawatt regime.

• OSTI ID: 5484702
• Report Number(s): CONF-910116--
• Conference Information: Journal Name: AIP Conference Proceedings (American Institute of Physics); (United States) Journal Volume: 217:2
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
220800* -- Nuclear Reactor Technology-- Propulsion Reactors
CYCLOTRON RESONANCE
EFFICIENCY
ELECTRON CYCLOTRON-RESONANCE
ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT
ENGINES
EQUIPMENT
MEGAWATT POWER RANGE
MOBILE REACTORS
NESDPS Office of Nuclear Energy Space and Defense Power Systems
POWER RANGE
POWER RANGE 01-10 MW
POWER REACTORS
POWER SUPPLIES
PROPULSION REACTORS
PROPULSION SYSTEMS
REACTORS
RESONANCE
ROCKET ENGINES
SPACE POWER REACTORS
SPACE PROPULSION REACTORS
SPACE VEHICLES
SPACECRAFT POWER SUPPLIES
THRUSTERS
VEHICLES