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Investigation of a pulsed electrothermal thruster system

Author
Tidman, D. A.
Published
Oct 31, 1984.
Physical Description
1 electronic document
Additional Creators
Burton, R. L., Goldstein, S. A., Winsor, N. K., and Hilko, B. K.
Online Version

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Unclassified, Unlimited, Publicly available.
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Summary
The performance of an ablative wall Pulsed Electrothermal (PET) thruster is accurately characterized on a calibrated thrust stand, using polyethylene propellant. The thruster is tested for four configurations of capillary length and pulse length. The exhaust velocity is determined with twin time-of-flight photodiode stagnation probes, and the ablated mass is measured from the loss over ten shots. Based on the measured thrust impulse and the ablated mass, the specific impulse varies from 1000 to 1750 seconds. The thrust to power varies from .05 N/kW (quasi-steady mode) to .10 N/kW (unsteady mode). The thruster efficiency varies from .56 at 1000 seconds to .42 at 1750 seconds. A conceptual design is presented for a 40 kW PET propulsion system. The point design system performance is .62 system efficiency at 1000 seconds specific impulse. The system's reliability is enhanced by incorporating 20, 20 kW thruster modules which are fired in pairs. The thruster design is non-ablative, and uses water propellant, from a central storage tank, injected through the cathode.
Other Subject(s)
Collection
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) Collection.
Note
Document ID: 19850002824.
Accession ID: 85N11132.
GTD-84-4.
NAS 1.26:174768.
NASA-CR-174768.
Terms of Use and Reproduction
No Copyright.
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