Magnetic confinement less microwave discharge gridded ion thruster

Abstract

Abstract A watt-level microwave discharge is induced without magnetic confinement for a high-precision gridded ion thruster, making use of a coaxial transmission line resonator. The thruster is characterized by performance measurements and plasma diagnosis, and a description of the operating mechanism of this thruster is given in this paper. A Faraday probe and a retarding potential analyzer are employed for the diagnosis. The results show that the plume divergence increases due to the electric field formed between the plume and the ion-induced electron emission cathode. A discharge mode transition is found during the increase of the microwave power, in which the bulk heating mode is converted to the surface heating mode. The magnetic-less microwave discharge gridded ion thruster performs a continuously adjustable thrust range of 5–115 μN and a highest total efficiency of 17.2%. Compared to the common ECR ion thruster, this thruster is free from magneto-static interference on the instruments and the additional magnetic momentum on the spacecraft.