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Initial operation of a 10 ms, quasi-steady multi-megawatt, coaxial plasma thruster

Conference · · AIP Conference Proceedings (American Institute of Physics); (United States)
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.43094· OSTI ID:6630784
; ; ; ; ;  [1]; ;  [2];  [3]
  1. Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mail Stop E526, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545 (United States)
  2. Department of Nuclear Engineering, Campus Box 7909, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695-7909 (United States)
  3. Aerospace and Energetics Research Program, FL-10, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195 (United States)
The Los Alamos National Laboratory Coaxial Thruster Experiment (CTX) has been upgraded to enable the quasi-steady operation of MPD type thrusters at power levels from 1 to 40 MW for 10 ms. Initial diagnostics include an 8 position, 3 axis magnetic field probe to measure magnetic field fluctuations during the pulse, a triple Langmuir probe to measure ion density, electron temperature and plasma potential and a time-of-flight neutral particle spectrometer to measure specific impulse. Here we report on preliminary investigation of long-pulse quasi-steady coaxial thruster performance.
OSTI ID:
6630784
Report Number(s):
CONF-930103--
Conference Information:
Journal Name: AIP Conference Proceedings (American Institute of Physics); (United States) Journal Volume: 271:3
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English