Design and Operation of Hall Thruster with Segmented Electrodes
Authors: N.J. Fisch, Y. Raitses, A.A. Litvak, and L.A. Dorf
Date: July 20, 1999
To be published in the AIAA Conference Proceedings 99-2T72 (1999)
Principles of the Hall thruster with segmented electrodes are explored. A suitable vacuum facility was put into service. For purposes of comparison between segmented and conventional thruster approaches, a modular laboratory prototype thruster was designed and built. Under conventional operation, the thruster achieves state-of-the-art efficiencies (56% at 300 V and 890 W). Very preliminary results under operation with segmented electrodes are also described.