Open AccessHall plasma thruster development for micro and nano satellites
Author(s) -
J. L. Ferreira,
Alexandre A. Martins,
Rodrigo A. Miranda,
M. Casal Porto,
Herbert O. Coelho
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of physics. conference series
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.21
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1742-6596
pISSN - 1742-6588
DOI - 10.1088/1742-6596/1365/1/012026
Subject(s) - cubesat , aerospace engineering , space (punctuation) , ion thruster , physics , vacuum chamber , plasma , electrically powered spacecraft propulsion , development (topology) , engineering , mechanical engineering , computer science , propulsion , satellite , nuclear physics , mathematics , operating system , mathematical analysis
Hall thrusters are one of the most successful electric thrusters for space application that has been developed until now. The Plasma Physics Laboratory of the University of Brasília (UnB) has been developing a Permanent Magnet Hall Thruster (PHALL) for the Brazilian Space Program since 2004. Recently we have achieved important experimental results satisfying our initial goals of generating a force above 40 mN with powers around 620 W. We will discuss in this article possible applications of this thruster to nano and microsatellites with powers above 50 W. Meanwhile, a complete description is given of our present and future installations where the new thruster will be tested; taking advantage of our new 1.5 m diameter vacuum chamber (the old chamber had 0.5 m in diameter), which intends to test our thruster in the most realistic conditions, including mounting and testing on a 3U CubeSat structure, which is where we intend to start testing our thruster in a real mission in space.