Numerical modeling of spacecraft electric propulsion thrusters

There is a clear current trend towards the replacement of small chemical thrusters used for spacecraft control by electric propulsion thrusters. These thrusters use a variety of mechanisms to convert electrical power into thrust and, in general, provide superior specific impulse in comparison to chemical systems. Electric propulsion has been under development for the last 40 yr, and almost all thrusters are designed based on experience and experimentation. The present article considers the progress made in numerical simulation of electric propulsion thrusters. Due to the wide range of such devices, attention is restricted to electric propulsion thruster types that are presently in use by orbiting spacecraft. The physical regimes created in these thrusters indicate that a variety of numerical methods is required for accurate numerical simulation ranging from continuum formulations to kinetic approaches. Successes of numerical simulation models are demonstrated through specific examples. It is concluded that numerical simulations can be expected to play a more prominent role in the design and evolution of future electric propulsion thrusters.     

电弧喷射推力器化学非平衡数值模拟

为了准确把握电弧喷射推力器工作过程物理机理与特征,采用化学非平衡模型对不同压缩室直径下低功率氮电弧喷射推力器工作情况进行了数值模拟。模型考虑了工作过程中的分解反应、电离反应和复合反应,化学动力学模型为4组分,4反应的有限速率化学反应模型。采用二阶精度NND格式数值求解耦合电磁源项和化学反应源项的N S方程组,采用有限控制容积积分方法求解由麦克斯韦方程组推导出的电磁场方程。数值模拟的结果揭示了推力器内部电弧能量输入作用和高温电离气体的离解电离状况,给出了不同压缩室直径下推力器的推力、比冲和推进效率。结果分析表明,压缩室直径对推力器性能具有较大影响。     

小功率电弧加热发动机地面试验（Ⅰ）NH3推进剂试验和分析

1引言电弧加热式发动机(Arcjet)与冷气和化学推进系统相结合,已经在国际上得到了广泛的应用,小功率Arcjet已被证明是运行可靠、性能优良的比较理想的空间先进推力器[1,2]。美国目前在轨运行的Arcjet大都以N2H4作为推进剂,主要执行南北位置保持任务;德国IRS用于AmsatPD-3卫星的A     

陶瓷基复合材料火箭发动机推力室研究进展

综述了陶瓷基复合材料火箭发动机推力室国外最新研究进展,介绍了国内在此方面的研究现状,最后对陶瓷基复合材料推力室在国内的发展及应用进行了展望.     

Particle simulation of grid system for krypton ion thrusters

The transport processes of plasmas in grid systems of krypton (Kr) ion thrusters at different acceleration voltages were simulated with a 3D-PIC model, and the result was compared with xenon (Xe) ion thrusters. The variation of the screen grid transparency, the accelerator grid current ratio and the divergence loss were explored. It is found that the screen grid transparency increases with the acceleration voltage and decreases with the beam current, while the accelerator grid current ratio and divergence loss decrease first and then increase with the beam current. This result is the same with Xe ion thrusters. Simulation results also show that Kr ion thrusters have more advantages than Xe ion thrusters, such as higher screen grid transparency, smaller accelerator grid current ratio, larger cut-off current threshold, and better divergence loss characteristic. These advantages mean that Kr ion thrusters have the ability of operating in a wide range of current. Through comprehensive analyses, it can be concluded that using Kr as propellant is very suitable for a multi-mode ion thruster design.     

双组元微型变轨发动机

介绍了本所研制的微型变轨发动机,其主要技术特点是双组元差动式电磁阀、层板喷注器、Ｃ／Ｃ推力室以及喷注器与推力室的焊接联接。试车表明,该发动机性能稳定、工作可靠,满足设计要求。     

基于章动原理实施推力器标定

为了保证在实施大的变轨过程中卫星的安全，必须进行推力器对偶性检验。卫星设计部门和地面工作人员根据卫星的特点，利用姿态数据及章动原理建立了一套标定推力器对称性的方法。此方法在地球同步三轴稳定卫星轨道维持过程中得到实际检验，效果良好。     

敏捷卫星的联合执行机构控制策略

 针对对地观测敏捷卫星大角度快速机动、高控制精度的任务需求,提出了联合推力器与飞轮作为执行机构的控制策略。该控制策略综合利用2种执行机构的优点:推力器以前馈的形式提供机动过程中所需的主要力矩以实现航天器大角度的快速机动,而飞轮以反馈的形式提供精准的控制力矩以提高机动过程中的姿态控制精度。为补偿由于初始状态偏差和推力器输出力矩不准确所带来的控制误差,采用变结构控制设计了2种姿态跟踪控制器,使航天器能够渐进地跟踪上参考轨迹。并对姿态机动控制过程中,飞轮力矩及转速可能出现的饱和问题作了相应的修正。仿真结果表明了所提控制策略及所设计控制算法的可行性和有效性。     

A brief review of alternative propellants and requirements for pulsed plasma thrusters in micropropulsion applications

Technological miniaturization has enabled the development of small satellites weighing as little as 1 kg. Unfortunately, there is still a lack of suitable efficient micropropulsion systems at these scales. The pulsed plasma thruster is a structurally simple form of electric propulsion. This simplicity also makes it ideally suited for miniaturization. Its history can be traced back to applications in satellites that are much larger than micro/nano-satellites. The vast majority of modern pulsed plasma thrusters use solid polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) as a propellant. Unfortunately, at lower discharge energy levels such as those necessitated by the power limitations of micro/nano-satellites, PTFE has a tendency to exhibit carbon deposition, which can ultimately lead to thruster failure. In this new era of small satellites, it is important to consider alternative propellants in the miniaturization of pulsed plasma thrusters. This brief review discusses the needs and limitations of small satellites and alternative propellants that may be able to meet these needs. Such propellants may be able to offer advantages such as a longer thruster lifetime, a higher specific impulse, or a higher thrust-to-power ratio. This would enable the development of different types of pulsed plasma thrusters that can be tailored towards specific mission requirements.     

Soft landing stability analysis of a Mars lander under uncertain terrain

Safe soft landing of the lander is vital to the Mars surface exploration mission. Analysis and verification of the landing stability under uncertain terrain play an important role in lander design. However, the effect of uncertain terrain is ignored in most existing studies, making the analysis incomprehensive and increasing the risk of landing failure in practice. In this paper, a Mars lander with 10 attitude control thrusters is introduced and its dynamics model is then established considering plastic deformation parts and nonlinear contact forces. The effectiveness and accuracy of the dynamics modeling method are verified by experiments with an average relative error of 10%. In order to carry out the dynamics simulation with high-fidelity terrain, a terrain generation method based on statistical data is proposed. Through Monte Carlo simulation under a 50 m × 50 m randomly generated landing terrain, the stability of the lander and the effects of attitude control thrusters are analyzed. The results show that the failure rate is 5.5%, in which the primary failure forms are overturning and abnormal attitude. When the landing simulations are repeated without thrusters, the stable ratio decreases from 94.5% to 90.7%, suggesting the positive effects of attitude control thrusters in improving landing stability under rough terrain.     

单组元肼推力器温度场仿真及试验

针对5N单组元肼推力器，建立了在轨运行过程中推力室热控组件的传热模型；应用有限元方法进行了热分析和仿真计算；并对计算结果进行地面热真空试验验证。对于进一步开发、研制具有新型结构和热控性能的姿控推力器和具有相似结构的多种推力器具有一定的借鉴和指导意义。     

Thruster design for position/attitude control of spacecraft

The objective of this work is to design the configuration of thrusters and valves of a propulsion system which should reject external and internal perturbations to control position and attitude of a spacecraft. As has been proved in a previous paper by Pena et al. (see ibid., vol. 36, no. 3, 2000), there exist configurations of 6 thrusters which can achieve this task, even under the failure of any one of them. Nevertheless, that previous result only presents analysis conditions and furthermore its implementation would demand also 6 valves, one for each thruster. Here we propose a design method that can solve the aforementioned problem with 6 thrusters/3 valves.     

Reliability of the Station-Keeping Activator Subsystem of a Geostationary Satellite

The reliability of the station-keeping activator subsystem of a geostationary satellite using electric thrusters is analyzed by modeling the probabilistic behavior of the system as a homogeneous Markov process. The method is applied to the particular case of a 400-kg satellite using 1.5-mN cesium contact electric thrusters. lt is shown that certain system configurations offer a mass improvement without loss of reliability.     

气动磁镜聚变推进器的火星探测任务分析

将气动磁镜聚变概念拓展到空间推进器应用,分析了不同等离子体密度和氢推进剂质量流率下聚变推进器的比冲和推力变化范围,理论计算表明其比冲可达10 000 s以上,推力最高可达几十牛。在此基础上,进一步采用气动磁镜聚变推进器对地火转移任务进行了数值仿真。假设推进器初始质量为100 t,仿真结果表明:当飞行时间在282.42~639.76 d变化时,剩余质量从88.59 t提升至98.24 t。相关分析表明基于气动磁镜的聚变空间推进器通过调节比冲和推力组合方式,可以很好地满足未来火星载人和货运任务对飞行时间和有效载荷份额的不同需求,是未来高性能空间推进器发展的一种候选方案。      

Ion engine grids: Function,main parameters,issues, configurations,geometries, materials and fabrication methods

Ion optics are crucial components of ion thrusters and the study of the different ion extraction solutions used since the beginning of the electric propulsion era is essential to understand the evolution of ion engines. This work describes ion engine grids' main functions, parameters and issues related to thermal expansion and sputter erosion, and then introduces a review of ion optics used for significant launched and tested ion thrusters since 1970. Configurations, geometries, materials and fabrication methods are analyzed to understand when typical ion thrusters use two or three grids, what are the thicknesses and aperture sizes of the screen, accelerator and decelerator grids, why molybdenum and carbon-based materials such as pyrolytic graphite and carbon–carbon are the best available options for ion optics and what is the manufacturing method for each material.     

星用远地点发动机真空比冲与推进剂温度关系

用于卫星变轨的第一、二代液体双组元490N发动机均采用了四氧化二氮（N2O4）/甲基肼（MMH）推进剂组合,直流互击式喷嘴以及液膜辐射冷却身部。迄今为止,第一代490N发动机共进行了80多台次的高空热试车。统计结果表明：真空比冲与推进剂温度存在负二次方的关联关系;另外,第二代490N发动机的多台热试车结果也表明两者有一定的联系,就此进行了理论分析与试验研究,阐述了其中的关联关系。     

Attitude stabilization with actuators subject to switching restrictions: an approach via exact relay control methods

On-off thrusters are frequently used as actuators for attitude control. Typically these thrusters are subject to switching constraints. A limit cycle is the normal steady state operation mode of such attitude control systems. This contribution deals with controller design for precision attitude stabilization using actuators whose switching restrictions are explicitly considered. An exact approach is presented using ideas from established relay control methods. The design procedure is illustrated with an attitude controller design to attain a limit cycle with prescribed characteristics     

各推力级霍尔推力器研究现状与展望

介绍了霍尔推力器原理的基础上,推导分析了霍尔推力器推力的影响因素,总结了改变其推力的主要方法。概述了微牛级、毫牛级和牛级等不同推力级适用的航天任务类型,按照3个级别对国内外霍尔推力器型号进行了分类,分别对3个推力级各系列型号的发展及趋势进行了梳理与分析。对各推力级霍尔推力器发展的关键技术进行了展望。针对其中的技术瓶颈与发展趋势进行了总结分析。全面、系统地针对各推力级霍尔推力器进行了综述。结果表明:毫牛级发展最为成熟的推力级,而随着航天任务类型逐渐丰富,微牛级和牛级霍尔推力器发展潜力愈发突出;研究结果提出了霍尔推进器应提升整体性能、扩展推力覆盖范围,强化多模式工作能力,发展空心阴极以及探究不同推进剂等建议。该研究结果对于霍尔电推进的进一步发展具有参考价值。      

空间推力器用铠装热控器件技术研究发展概况（空间推进专刊）

空间推力器是调整宇航飞行器运行轨道和姿态的推进系统中的关键部件,为保证推力器启动温度和可靠运行,必须采用专门的热控设施。本文介绍了各类空间推力器的不同热控需求,重点阐述了目前空间推力器用铠装热控器件技术以及种类、性能和应用,总结了铠装热控器件的考核试验及判定指标,并提出了铠装热控器件技术的发展方向。     

空间推力器用铠装热控器件技术研究发展述评

空间推力器是调整航天器运行轨道和姿态的推进系统中的关键部件,为保证推力器启动温度和可靠运行,必须采用专门的热控设施。本文介绍了各类空间推力器的不同热控需求,重点阐述了目前空间推力器用铠装热控器件关键技术以及种类、性能和应用,总结了铠装热控器件的考核试验及判定指标,并提出了铠装热控器件技术的发展方向。