Performance enhancement of a long-life, low-power hall thruster for deep-space smallsats

Abstract

The increase in performance resulting from optimization of the magnetic field in a low-power magnetically shielded Hall thruster is investigated. The magnetic circuit of the MaSMi-60 Hall thruster was modified to improve the magnetic field topology while increasing the strength of the field across the discharge channel gap. Direct thrust measurements were then taken to assess the changes to thruster efficiency, thrust, and specific impulse. The MaSMi-60's total efficiency increased by nearly 30% as a result of the improved magnetic field, resulting in a peak value of 32.1% (38.6% anode efficiency). Peak thrust and total specific impulse values of 35.8 mN and 1,440 s (1,550 s anode specific impulse) were observed. To demonstrate the thruster's enabling capabilities when paired with a smallsat-class spacecraft, three example mission trajectories to 118401 LINEAR, an icy asteroid-belt comet, were calculated. For each trajectory, the MaSMi-60's experimentally demonstrated performance was used for the throttling table inputs. The trajectory solutions show a delivered mass fraction of between 35–49% for an initial spacecraft mass of up to 350 kg, a solar array power of up to 2.0 kW, and a total transfer time of ∼6.5 years.