Thrust Measurements on the High Efficient and Reliable Vacuum Arc Thruster (HERVAT)

Abstract

In this work, thrust measurements of the high efficient and reliable vacuum arc thruster (HERVAT) are performed for different pulse energies. The thruster system includes a thruster head together with a newly developed pulse processing unit (PPU). The complete system (HERVAT + PPU) is able to perform more than 1 × 107 pulses. Moreover, the influence of an integrated active magnetic nozzle is investigated. As a result, the thrust to power ratio, the average thrust level and the impulse bit for each configuration are measured and calculated. For the thrust measurements, a highly sensitive horizontal thrust balance with an active force actuator is used and operated in the thrust compensation mode. The investigated system is able to achieve levels from 5 to 40 μN and thrust to power ratios from 1 to 2 μN/W. The experimental results are compared to the data available in literature.