一种无加热器的电推进用空心阴极

电推力器在国际上已得到广泛应用.目前应用的电推力器,启动时间较长,无法用于需要快速响应的场合.空心阴极是造成电推力器启动时间较长的根本原因.无加热器阴极是一种新型空心阴极,可使得电推力器的启动时间缩短至1 s之内,大大提升电推进系统的响应特性,而且还可以提高电推进系统的稳态工作性能和可靠性.本文介绍无加热器阴极的基本工作原理和应用优势,详细论述无加热器阴极的研究进展,提出突破无加热器阴极技术需要攻克的关键技术.

Heaterless hollow cathode for electric propulsion

Electric thrusters have been widely used in the world. However, by far the key disadvantage of electric thrusters is that their start time is too long, so they cannot be used in the missions which need fast ignition. The primary reason why the electric thrusters have long ignition time is caused by the hollow cathode assembly. The heaterless hollow cathode is a novel hollow cathode, which can make the electric thruster started in less than 1 s, and improve the response characteristics, stable-state operating performance and reliability of the electric propulsion system. The working principle and advantages of the heaterless hollow cathode are introduced in this paper. The research progress of the heaterless hollow cathode is elaborated. At the end, the key points of the technology which are required to develop this kind of hollow cathode are given.