We have designed a micromachined micro Coriolis flow sensor for the measurement of hydrazine (N2H4, High Purity Grade) propellant flow in micro chemical propulsion systems [1]. The sensor measures mass flow up to 6 mg/s for a single thruster or up to 24 mg/s for four thrusters. The sensor will first be used for measurement and characterization of the micro thruster system in a simulated space v...

Current research on control allocation emphasizes reconfiguration for adapting to thruster failures. However, in the application of autonomous assembly, the reconfiguration is necessitated by changing physical properties. For the scenario of an assembler tug constructing a large space structure, every docking and undocking maneuver used for the tug to move an individual payload causes a large s...

The effects of dissimilar probe design and facility backpressure on the measured ion current densities of Hall thrusters are investigated. JPL and GRC designed nude Faraday probes are used to simultaneously measure the ion current density of a 5 kW Hall thruster in the Large Vacuum Test Facility (LVTF) at the University of Michigan. The probes are located one meter from the exit plane of the Ha...

A two-dimensional radial-axial hybrid simulation of the xenon-fueled Stanford Hall Thruster has been adapted to model a bismuth-fed thruster with varying channel geometry. The simulation treats the electrons as a quasi-one-dimensional fluid and the neutrals and ions as discrete superparticles advanced using a particle-in-cell (PIC) approach. Since experimental data of the electron cross-field m...

The performance metrics of a 2-kW-class thruster operated using magnesium propellant was measured and compared to the performance of the same thruster operated using xenon propellant. It was found that the magnesium thruster has thrust ranging from 34 mN at 200 V to 39 mN at 300 V with 1.7 mg/s of propellant. It was found to have 27 mN of thrust at 300 V using 1.0 mg/s of propellant. The thrust...

Recently great emphasize was put forward into high power Hall thruster development. Among Hall thruster technologies, the thruster with anode layer (TAL) seems to have much wider technical capabilities. In this paper, various aspects of the plasma flow in a high power thruster with anode layer are studied. A model of plasma flow in the TAL channel is developed based on a 2D hydrodynamic approac...

The plasma diagnosis technology is an essential tool to investigate the characteristics in pulsed thruster, which can understand fundamental mechanisms behind thruster. This review introduces application of diagnostic thrusters, investigates research status applied and discusses usual diagnostics methods. In contact method, Langmuir three probes thruster mainly introduced. non-contact optical e...

With 900 Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) required over the next decade (Newman et al., 2007) existing survey-style AUVs need improved utilization factors. Additional control devices to extend operational capability need consideration together with the interchange between AUV control approaches. This paper considers supplementary through-body tunnel thruster control during the transition f...

Extensive resources have been allocated to diagnose and minimize lifetime-limiting factors in gridded ion thrusters. While most of this effort has focused on grid erosion, results from wear tests indicate that discharge cathode erosion may also play an important role in limiting the lifetime of ring-cusp ion thrusters proposed for future large flagship missions. The detailed characterization of...