微空心阴极放电推力器性能研究

微空心阴极放电推力器是一种新颖的电热式微推力器,利用纳卫星提供的1~10 W的功率可提高微推进装置的性能。为了预示该推力器的性能,结合实验中测量的气体温度值和火箭发动机原理,初步计算得出微放电推力器的推力范围为几十至上千μN,以氩气为工质比冲量级为600~1 000 N.s/kg,以氦气为工质比冲量级为3 000 N.s/kg。研究结果表明,微空心阴极放电较小的尺寸结构与强烈并可控的气体加热相结合,可以开发应用在电热式微放电推进中,作为微小卫星,尤其是纳卫星和皮卫星的动力系统。

Performance of microhollow cathode discharge thruster

The gas heating of microhollow cathode discharge (MHCD) is found to have a strong relation with overall discharge behavior in the experimental investigation. It provides crucial understanding to support the application and preliminary design of MHCD thruster. The thruster produced by this kind of propulsion system is predicted in the range of several tens to several thousands μN and the specific impulse is evaluated on the order of 600～1 000 N·s/kg using argon or on the order of 3000 N·s/kg using helium as the propellant gas respectively. The main performance of the MHCD thruster proves that MHCD can be applied as a new microplasma propulsion system for attitude control and station keeping of nano-satellites.