Three-Dimensional Plasma Particle-in-Cell Calculations of Ion Thruster Backflow Contamination
✍ Scribed by Robie I.Samanta Roy; Daniel E. Hastings; Steven Taylor
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1996
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 484 KB
- Volume
- 128
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0021-9991
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✦ Synopsis
The evaluation of the thruster-induced environmental effects that could degrade the performance of spacecraft A fully three-dimensional hybrid plasma particle-in-cell model for multi-computer environments was developed to assess the space-subsystems and sensors is very important. For example, in craft backflow contamination of an ion thruster. Results of plume ion thruster plumes, a low-energy plasma is created by backflow are presented for a 13-cm xenon ion thruster operating charge-exchange (CEX) processes and can expand around with a current level of 0.4 A on a model spacecraft. The computaa spacecraft leading to a current drain on high-voltage tional domain was over 40 m 3 in volume, and used over 35 million surfaces. The enhanced plasma density due to a thruster particles representing charge-exchange (CEX) xenon ions produced plume can also lead to attenuation and refraction of elecin the plume. Results obtained on a massively parallel 256-node Cray T3D clearly show the plasma density enhancement around tromagnetic wave transmission and reception. In addition, the spacecraft due to the CEX ions. Three-dimensional results are ion thrusters emit heavy metal species, both charged and compared with the results of a two-dimensional axisymmetric uncharged, due to grid and discharge chamber erosion model to explore the three-dimensionality of the backstreaming which can easily adhere to sensitive spacecraft surfaces flow field.