›› 2019, Vol. 39 ›› Issue (4): 73-.

Development and ignition characteristics of miniature gallium field emission electric propulsion thruster

XU  Ming-Ming, KANG  Xiao-Ming, GUO  Deng-Shuai, LIU  Xin-Yu, HE  Wei-Guo

1. School of Mechanical Engineering，Shanghai Jiao Tong University，Shanghai 200240，China
• Received:2018-11-19 Revised:2019-01-02 Online:2019-08-25 Published:2019-04-11

Abstract: In order to meet the demand for propulsion systems of micronano spacecraft such as the cubic satellite, the first needletype miniature gallium field emission electric propulsion thruster in China was developed. The problem that gallium is difficult to fully wet the tungsten needle under vacuum environment was solved by increasing the wetting temperature. The thruster′s stable ignition was realized, and the thruster′s ignition characteristics under different wetting temperatures and different geometric parameters were tested. The relationship is obtained that the emission current increases as the wetting temperature increases, the pole spacing decreases, and the inner hole diameter of absorbing pole increases. The theoretical thrust under different emission currents is given by formula calculation.The electric field strength under different geometric parameters is obtained by simulation, and the reason why the geometric parameters affect the emission current is revealed.