• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2004.03a
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• pp.262-270
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• 2004

Basic experiments were carried out using the THT-IV low-power Hall thruster to examine the influences of magnetic field shape and strength, and acceleration channel length on thruster performance and to establish guidelines for design of high-performance Hall thrusters. Thrusts were measured with varying magnetic field and channel structure. Exhaust plasma diagnostic measurement was also made to evaluate plume divergent angles and voltage utilization efficiencies. Ion current spatial profiles were measured with a Faraday cup, and ion energy distribution functions were estimated from data with a retarding potential analyzer. The thruster was stably operated with a highest performance under an optimum acceleration channel length of 20 mm and an optimum magnetic field with a maximum strength of about 150 Gauss near the channel exit and with some shape considering ion acceleration directions. Accordingly, an optimum magnetic field and channel structure is considered to exist under an operational condition, related to inner physical phenomena of plasma production, ion acceleration and exhaust plasma feature. A new Hall thruster was designed with basic research data of the THT-IV thruster. With the thruster with many considerations, long stable operations were achieved. In all experiments at 200-400 V with 1.5-3 mg/s, the thrust and the specific impulse ranged from 15 to 70 mN and from 1100 to 2300 see, respectively, in a low electric power range of 300~1300 W. The thrust efficiency reached 55 %. Hence, a large map of the thruster performance was successfully made. The thermal characteristics were also examined with data of both measured and calculated temperatures in the thruster body. Thermally safe conditions were achieved with all input powers.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.298-302
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• 2009

Low power Hall thruster is under development as one of the core technologies for STSAT-3. The Hall thruster has several advantages such as its simple structure, high thrust density and specific impulse etc. Development target values deduced by analyzing requirements are consumed electrical power, thrust, thrust efficiency, and specific impulse of < 300 W, > 10 mN, ~ 35%, and > 1000 s, respectively. In order to achieve the target specifications, two prototype Hall thrusters were developed and compared. To date, thrust and efficiency are 11 mN and 37% under the total power of 290 W with 0.97 mg/s Xe propellent supply.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.195-200
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• 2011

A low power Hall thruster is under development for orbit maintenance of a small Earth observing satellite. Both cylindrical and annular type thrusters were manufactured and tested to characterize the performance of cylindrical Hall thrusters. Results were described through comparative analyses. Cylindrical thrusters were manufactured in two different channel diameter dimensions, 28 mm and 50 mm. Thrust, ion velocity and ion current were measured in various operating conditions. The results show that cylindrical thrusters are more efficient in mass utilization and voltage utilization, but less efficient in current utilization than annular one.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2008.03a
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• pp.570-573
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• 2008

In spite of many experimental studies of low-power applied-field magnetoplasmadynamic(AFMPD) thrusters, thrust efficiencies of the past thrusters are very low. Hence, drastic improvement in thrust performance is required for AF-MPD thrusters to compete against other types of electric propulsion in a moderate power regime around 10 kW. For the optimization of AF-MPD thrusters, a numerical code for the flowfield simulation is now under development. A preliminary result shows that the code can deal with a complicated mixture of the induced and applied magnetic fields, which will lead to a combination of the self-field, swirl, Hall, as well as electrothermal accelerations.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.40-46
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• 2022

Hall thrusters are one of the electric propulsion, where ions are accelerated to generate thrust and are widely utilized in space missions due to their high specific impulses. Recently, as the utilization of small and micro satellites with the mass of similar or less than 100 kg is highly increasing, the importance of research and development of the low-power electric propulsion is also raised. In this study, we developed two sub-200 W or less class, laboratory model Hall thrusters and measured the thrust and analyzed the discharge characteristics. Consequently, we obtained 2.5-9.0 mN of thrust, 600-1,150 s of specific impulse, and 15-28% of anode efficiency at 50-175 W of anode power.