Cusp Ion Engine Discharge Chamber

The aim of the activity is to design, manufacture and test a cusp ion engine discharge chamber at elegant breadboard level. An specific analysis on the possible optimisation of the discharge chamber should be pursued together with generic design tools.  

The use of electric propulsion (EP) for orbit raising manoeuvres from GTO to GEO will allow to reduce huge amounts of propellant in telecommunication spacecraft and Galileo Evolution satellites. For example the current medium telecommunication platforms will reuire only 375 kg of Xenon to perform this manoeuvre instead of the 1700 kg of Hydrazine. The use of EP will nevertheless increase the amount of time of such manoeuvre. The medium telecommunication platform will employ several months to rise the orbit from GTO to GEO. Therefore, it is very important to reduce the power to thrust ratio of EP systems. The current ion engine requires 30 W/mN, the cusp engine will allow to reduce this figure to around 25 W/mN. This figure will allow to reduce the transfer time in some months. The same argument is required for Galileo Evolution satellites. Furthermore, the simplicity of the design of the ring cusp with respect to the Kaufman thruster (no solenoids, onlypermanent magnets, easy discharge process, etc) will allow reducing the cost and complexity of the system. In this activity it is proposed the development of a ring cusp Ion engine discharge chamber, its optimisation and testing together with the development of general design tools for the optimisation of the discharge chamber.