.100 W Solid-state Source Of The Microwave Plasma Thruster Development And Efficiency Analysis

In the past several ten years, with more and more requirements for high performance spacecraft propulsion system, Electric Propulsion (EP) has become a focus of spaceflight field and widely be applied in space missions. Microwave Plasma Thruster(MPT) is one kind of electrothermal thruster, it advantages are moderate specific impulse, long life, well compatible with spacecraft and so on, which make it a most perspective application in space flying. Microwave generator of MPT is power supply apparatus. How to decrease its volumne and mass is the key problem for its applycation.At present,existing Microwave generator in the lab is large volume and weight, which restricts MPT research and performance improvement. This paper is based on the existing MS, aim to develop a new small volume and light weight solid-stste microwave source(SSMS) with semiconductor elements for MPT, test its performance, analyze and estimate MPT efficiency.The contents of this paper include:1. Choose the main component elements of SSMS using related microwave, circuit, heat transfer knowledge, and decide the SSMS's forming project. The microwave generator uses quartz oscillator whose stability is very high; Frequency synthesizer uses integration PLL and frequency divider, power amplifier uses field effect transistor(FET), SSMS cooling method is convective water cooling style.2. The assistant microwave elements are detailedly introduced. With design circuit diagram and PCB, a new SSMS which is satisfied with the requirements of MPT has be developed.3. Analyze the transfers efficiency of MPT show that SSMS's efficiency and thruster coupling efficiency is the main influence factors of MPT system efficiency, and obtained the MPT system efficiency is about 27% from the test data.After long-term test, the developed SSMS can stably and reliably work, well performance and express that the developed SSMS is feasible.