Operation and Performance of a Magnetically Shielded Hall Thruster at Ultrahigh Current Densities on Xenon and Krypton
Leanne L. Su, Parker J. Roberts, Tate Gill, William Hurley, Thomas A. Marks, Christopher L. Sercel, Madison Allen, Collin B. Whittaker, Matthew Byrne, Zachariah Brown, Eric Viges, Benjamin Jorns
Abstract
View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2023-0842.vid The performance of a 9-kW class magnetically shielded Hall thruster is characterized at 300 V discharge voltage for a channel current density a factor of ten greater than the nominal current density associated with its 300 V and 4.5 kW condition. An inverted pendulum thrust stand and a far-field probe suite are employed to measure the global performance and efficiency modes respectively. It is found that when operating on xenon, thruster anode efficiencies range from 52.9 ±0.8% to 62.2 ±2.2% over the power range of 4.5–37.5 kW at 300 V. Anode efficiencies for krypton span from 48.5 ±7.0% to 56.4 ±1.0% at 4.5–45 kW at 300 V. The thrust and specific impulse are found to be 1650 ±10 mN and 2309 ±17 s respectively at 37.5 kW for xenon and 1839 ±10 mN and 2567 ±16 s for 45 kW on krypton. The thrust density at the maximum power setting of 45 kW is shown to be ∼7× higher than its nominal 4.5 kW condition. It is also demonstrated that the thruster can achieve thrust densities and thrust-to-power ratios on par with or even greater than applied-field magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters in the sub-50 kW power range. These results are discussed in the context of Hall thruster theory, conventional scaling laws for the maximum achievable current density in these devices, and challenges with high power thruster testing. The implications of the demonstrated ability to achieve atypically high current densities with minimal performance reduction for high power electric propulsion development are also examined.