Development of Kabila rocket: A radioisotope heated thermionic plasma rocket engine

A new type of plasma rocket engine, the Kabila rocket, using a radioisotope heated thermionic heating chamber instead of a conventional combustion chamber or catalyst bed is introduced and it achieves specific impulses similar to the ones of conventional solid and bipropellant rockets. Curium-244 is chosen as a radioisotope heat source and a thermal reductive layer is also used to obtain precise thermionic emissions. The self-sufficiency principle is applied by simultaneously heating up the emitting material with the radioisotope decay heat and by powering the different valves of the plasma rocket engine with the same radioisotope decay heat using a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. This rocket engine is then benchmarked against a 1 N hydrazine thruster configuration operated on one of the Pleiades-HR-1 constellation spacecraft. A maximal specific impulse and power saving of respectively 529 s and 32% are achieved with helium as propellant.Its advantages are its power saving capability, high specific impulses and simultaneous ease of storage and restart. It can however be extremely voluminous and potentially hazardous. The Kabila rocket is found to bring great benefits to the existing spacecraft and further research should optimize its geometric characteristics and investigate the physical principals of its operation.     

空心阴极的发射热特性研究

空心阴极的发射体在电子发射时会处于动态热平衡状态,这种发射热特性对发射体的利用率和工作寿命有重要意义。为研究空心阴极发射热特性及相关热设计方法,建立一种流-热耦合数值模型,将等离子体流场计算与组件热分布计算进行耦合,并采取一种逆向迭代方法来收敛计算,数值模型在验证试验下的计算误差低于11.3%。在此基础上,对发射体温差的机理以及阴极顶孔径对发射体温差的影响规律进行数值分析,主要结论为:羽状模式下的核心电离区较发散,导致发射体温差较点状模式高出50 K左右;适当增加阴极顶孔径可对发射体温差有降低作用。