Accession Number:
AD1026589
Title:
Microwave Plasma Propulsion Systems for Defensive Counter-Space
Descriptive Note:
Technical Report,01 Sep 2007,31 May 2008
Corporate Author:
Starfire Industries LLC Champaign United States
Personal Author(s):
Report Date:
2007-09-01
Pagination or Media Count:
72.0
Abstract:
The key result from this project period was measurement of plasma acceleration in both over-dense and under-dense modes with the former generating high ion currents in the 12-60 eVbeam energy range and the latter generating plasma in the 50-500 eV range. As hypothesized in the Phase I proposal, resonantly exciting electrons near the peak of the magnetic nozzle expansion region leads to large am bipolar field generation and quasi-static ion acceleration.Variation in propellant mass flow and magnetic field produce observable changes in downstreamion energy. Interpretation of published literature on ECR-plasma Monte Carlo simulations suggests that high jet power efficiency exceeding 65, rivaling modem Hall-Effect Thrusters