Ion thruster

INDEX

Sr. No Content Page No.

List Of Figures 2

List Of Tables 2

Abbreviations

1. Introduction 3

1.1 What Is An Ion drive ? 3

1.2 Past Ion Propulsion 4

1.3 Current Ion Propulsion 5

2. Literature Review 6

3. Constructional Features 7

4. Operation Of Ion Thruster 10

5. Future Scope 12

6. Missions 13

7. Conclusion 15

8. References 16

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List Of Figures
Figure No. Name Of Figure Page No.

1.1 Deep Space One 4

1.2 Dawn Spacecraft 5

3.1 Components Of Ion 7

Thruster
3.2 Grid 9
4.1 .Schematics Of An Ion 10
Thruster
6.1 X3 Ion Thruster 12

List Of Tables
Table No. Name Of Table Page No.

6.1 Test data of some ion 14

thrusters

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1. INTRODUCTION
Ion propulsion has been studied since the early 1960's. NASA Glenn Research
Center has had a long history of leadership in the area of electric propulsion, and is
currently NASA's lead center for ion propulsion. The links to the left outline
significant ion propulsion progress in each decade.

1.1 WHAT IS AN ION DRIVE?

An ion is simply an atom or molecule that is electrically charged. Ionization is the

process of electrically charging an atom or molecule by adding or removing electrons.
Ions can be positive (when they lose one or more electrons) or negative (when they
gain one or more electrons). A gas is considered ionized when some or all the atoms
or molecules contained in it are converted into ions.

An ion thruster or ion drive is a form of electric propulsion used for spacecraft
propulsion. It creates thrust by accelerating cations by utilizing electricity. The term
refers strictly to gridded electrostatic ion thrusters, and is often incorrectly loosely
applied to all electric propulsion systems including electromagnetic plasma
thrusters.

An ion thruster ionizes a neutral gas by extracting some electrons out of atoms,
creating a cloud of positive ions. These thrusters rely mainly on electrostatics as
ions are accelerated by the Coulomb force along an electric field. Temporarily
stored electrons are finally reinjected by a neutralizer in the cloud of ions after it has
passed through the electrostatic grid, so the gas becomes neutral again and can freely
disperse in space without any further electrical interaction with the thruster.
Electromagnetic thrusters on the contrary use the Lorentz force to accelerate all
species (free electrons as well as positive and negative ions) in the same direction
whatever their electric charge, and are specifically referred as plasma propulsion
engines, where the electric field is not in the direction of the acceleration.
Ion thrusters in operational use have an input power need of 1–7 kW, exhaust

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velocity 20–50 km/s, thrust 25–250 millinewtons and efficiency 65–80% though
experimental versions have achieved 100 kW, 5N.

1.2 PAST ION PROPULSION

The NASA Glenn Research Center has been a leader in ion propulsion technology
development since the late 1950s, with its first test in space. The Space Electric
Rocket Test 1 flying on July 20, 1964. From 1998 to 2001, the NASA Solar
Technology Application Readiness (NSTAR) ion propulsion system enabled the
Deep Space 1 mission, the first spacecraft propelled primarily by ion propulsion, to
travel over 163 million miles and make flybys of the asteroid Braille and the comet
Borelly. Some of the specifications of Deep Space 1 are given below,

The 30cm ion thruster operates over a 0.5 kW to 2.3 kW. Input power range providing
thrust from 19 mN to 92 mN. The specific impulse ranges from 1900 sec at 0.5 kW to
3100 sec at 2.3 kW.

Fig.1.1 deep space one

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1.3 CURRENT ION PROPULSION

Ion thrusters (based on a NASA design) are now being used to keep over 100
geosynchronous Earth orbit communication satellites in their desired locations, and
three NSTAR ion thrusters that utilize Glenn-developed technology are enabling the
Dawn spacecraft (launched in 2007) to travel deep into our solar system. Dawn is
the first spacecraft to orbit two objects in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Fig. Dawn Spacecraft.

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2. LITERATURE REVIEW

[1] Miguel Sangregorio et.al. (Jun 2018) They have done configuration and also did an
analysis on the different parts of Ion Thruster. They had given different materials used
for different parts along with their comparisons. They had discovered various new
methods of fabrication of Ion Thruster Grid.

[2] Michael Patterson (Oct 2016) They had described operation of an Ion Thruster. They
had given overview of history of an Ion Thruster. Various modification in the past
designs and comparison of the designs were given by them. The future scope of Ion
Thruster in various fields were described by them.

[3] P.A. Saevets et.al. (2017) Their main research was on the various propellent that are
used for Ion Thrusters. They had studied various properties of conventional propellent
Xenon. They had also study the alternative propellent used for Ion Thruster that is
Krypton. Comparison between these two propellent was given by them.

[4] Hemant Kumar Yadav et.al. (2014) They had described all the electric propulsion
systems, included of elctrothermal propulsion, electrostatic propulsion and
electromagnectic propulsion. They had also given brief description of ion thrusters,
Colliod thruster ,Electrodynamic Theter , rocket , propellant , spacecraft , Pulsed plasma
thruster.

[5] Michael Patterson (2004) They has been given the information from very basis that
is from what is meant by ion to the ion thruster operation. Past, current, future missions
taken. place by NASA had given by them.

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3. CONSTRUCTIONAL FEATURES

Ion thrusters are characterized by the electrostatic acceleration of ions extracted from a
plasma source. Ion thrusters are categorized as either electrostatic or electromagnetic.
The main difference is the method for accelerating the ions.

Electrostatic ion thrusters use the Coulomb force and accelerate the ions in the
direction of the electric field.

Electromagnetic ion thrusters use the Lorentz force to move the ions.

Fig. 3.1 shows the main parts of an ion thruster with a two-grid extraction system

Fig. 3.1 Components Of Ion Thruster

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A. Propellants And Electron Emitter

In practice, the most amenable propellants for electrostatic thrusters have
proven to be cesium, mercury, argon, krypton, and most commonly xenon, and
many possible sources of such ions of the requisite efficiency, reliability, and
uniformity have been conceived and developed. Of these, only three, the
electron bombardment discharge source, the cesium-tungsten surface contact
ionization source, and one form of radio frequency discharge source, have
survived to application. The essential elements of the bombardment sources are
some form of cylindrical discharge chamber containing a centerline hot cathode
that emits electrons. This particular device employs a hollow cathode electron
source or gun. Modern ion thrusters use inert gases for propellant. The majority
of thrusters use xenon, which is chemically inert, colorless, odorless, and
tasteless. The propellant is injected from the downstream end of the thruster and
flows toward the upstream end. This injection method is preferred because it
increases the time that the propellant remains in the chamber.

B. Magnets

High strength magnets are placed along the discharge chamber walls so that as
electrons approach the walls, they are redirected into the discharge chamber by the
magnetic fields. A surrounding anode shell, and a permeating azimuthal and radial
magnetic field that constrains the electrons to gyrate within the chamber long enough
to ionize the injected propellant gas and to direct it, once ionized, to extractor and
accelerator grids downstream.

C. Grids
The ion accelerator consists of electrically biased multi-aperture grids, typically two
or three, which are called ion optics. The grid in contact with the plasma in the
discharge chamber is called screen grid, the second one is called accelerator (accel)
grid, and the third one, used in some engines, is called decelerator (decel) grid. The
thruster ion optics assembly serves three main purposes,

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1. extract ions from the discharge chamber,

2. accelerate ions to generate thrust and
3. prevent the back streaming of the electrons from the neutralizer hollow cathode.

Fig.3.2 Grid

D. Neutralizing Electron Gun

A second hollow cathode called the neutralizer is located on the downstream perimeter
of the thruster and expels the needed electrons.
Ion thrusters emit a beam of positively charged xenon ions. To keep the spacecraft from
accumulating a charge, another cathode is placed near the engine to emit electrons into
the ion beam, leaving the propellant electrically neutral. This prevents the beam of ions
from being attracted (and returning) to the spacecraft, which would cancel the thrust

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4. OPERATION
The ion propulsion system (IPS) consists of five units

1. the power processing unit (PPU)

2. the power source

3. propellant management system (PMS)

4. the control computer

5. the ion thruster.

The power source is usually any source of electrical power such as solar or nuclear
power. A solar electric propulsion system (SEP) uses solar cells to generate power.
A nuclear electric propulsion system (NEP) is using a nuclear145 heat source
connected to an electric generator. The generated electric power by the power source
is then converted by the PPU, supplying the power required for each component of
the ion thruster, such as the positive and negative grids, discharge chamber and the
hollow cathodes. The PMS controls the propellant flow from the propellant tank. The
design of PMS is highly sophisticated and it does not require moving parts.

Fig. 4.1 Schematics of an Ion Thruster.

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Figure shows depicts the operation of an ion thruster. An ion thruster moves ions by
electrostatic repulsion. The neutral Xenon propellant enters from the propellant tank.
A hollow cathode emits electrons which impact the Xenon atoms, pounding loose
an electron and creating positive Xenon ions. The positive ions are then pushed by
gas pressure through holes in a positive grid. Then the electric field between the
positive and negative grid accelerates the ions such that the ion beam is exhausted
out through the nozzle. A hollow cathode plasma bridge neutralizer is placed at the
exit of the nozzle which shoots out electrons to neutralize the ion beam. Otherwise
the ions would be attracted back to the negative grid, cancelling out the thrust.

The performance of electrostatic thrusters can be obtained by setting the potential

energy in relation to the kinetic energy of the ion. The potential energy of the ion, as
it leaves the ionization region, is determined by the voltage potential applied between
the ion source and the exit plane.

As the ion thruster produces small levels of thrust relative to chemical thrusters, it
generates higher specific impulse or the higher exhaust velocities. It means that such
a thruster can have fuel efficiency of 10–12 times greater than a chemical thruster.
As it has mentioned that the higher the rocket’s specific impulse or the fuel
efficiency, the farther the spacecraft can travel with a given amount of fuel. Because
of the low level of thrust production in ion thrusters relative to chemical thrusters, it
needs to operate in excess of 10,000 hours to slowly accelerate the spacecraft to
speeds necessary to reach other planets in the solar system.

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5. FUTURE SCOPE

In the recent tests, the X3 broke three different records previously set by other Hall
thrusters, a very promising step towards manned Mars missions. Most importantly of
course is thrust: the X3 blasted off with 5.4 newtons of force, smashing the previous
record of 3.3 newtons. On top of that, the engine also managed an operating current
of 250 amperes, which is more than double that of the previous record, and ran at
102 kilowatts of power, just edging out the previous record of 98 kW.
The tests were conducted over 25 days in July and August this year in a vacuum
chamber at the NASA Glenn Research Center. Since the thruster gives off quite a bit
of exhaust, which can then interfere with readings, this particular vacuum chamber is
apparently the only one in the US that can properly test the X3. A specially-built
stand was also needed to support its 500 lb (227 kg) weight.

Fig. 6.1 X3 Ion Thruster

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6. MISSIONS

Ion thrusters have many in-space propulsion applications. The best applications make
use of the long mission interval when significant thrust is not needed. Examples of this
include orbit transfers, attitude adjustments, drag compensation for low Earth orbits,
fine adjustments for scientific missions and cargo transport between propellant depots,
e.g., for chemical fuels. Ion thrusters can also be used for interplanetary and deep-space
missions where acceleration rates are not crucial. Continuous thrust over a long interval
can reach high velocities while consuming far less fuel than traditional chemical
rockets.

Among electric thrusters, ion thrusters have received the most serious commercial and
academic consideration. Ion thrusters are seen as the best solution for these missions,
as they require high change in velocity but do not require rapid acceleration.

➢ BepiColombo

ESA's BepiColombo mission was launched to Mercury on October 20, 2018. It uses
ion thrusters in combination with swing-bys to get to Mercury, where a chemical
rocket will complete orbit insertion.

➢ Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway

The Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway is proposed to have a module called 'Power and
Propulsion Element' (PPE) that will be used to generate electricity for the space
station and its ion thruster. It is targeting launch on a commercial vehicle in 2022. It
will probably use the 50 kW Advanced Electric Propulsion System (AEPS) under
development at NASA Glenn Research Center and Aerojet Rocketdyne.

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6.1 Test data of some ion thrusters

Thrust
Specific
Input Thrust er
Engine Propellant impulse
power (kW) (mN) mass
(s)
(kg)
NSTAR Xenon 2.3 3300–1700 92 max. -
PPS-1350
Xenon 1.5 1660 90 5.3
Hall effect
NEXT Xenon 6.9 4190 236 max. -
NEXIS Xenon 20.5 - - -
RIT 22 Xenon 5 - - -
BHT8000 Xenon 8 2210 449 25
Hall effect Xenon 75 - - -
Liquid
FEEP 6×10−5 – 0.06 6000–10000 0.001–1 -
caesium

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7. CONCLUSION

Ion thrusters have proven to be a suitable and efficient alternative to conventional

propulsion systems. With very low demand on fuel due to very high specific impulse
generation, ion thrusters can easily compete with chemical propulsion systems, even if
the produced thrust is much lower. The system can be used for various mission demands
like orbit station keeping for geostationary satellites, orbit and attitude controlling and
multi-goal missions. Whereas chemical propulsion is highly unsuitable for deep space
missions, ion thrusters are also making it possible to reach out further into deep space

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8. REFERENCE

1) Miguel M. S. , Kan X. A., Ningfei W. A., Ning G. b., Zun Z., “Ion engine grids:
Function, main parameters, issues, configurations, geometries, materials and
fabrication methods”, Chinese Journal of Aeronautics, 2017, pp. 1635–1649.

2) Michael Patterson., “National Aeronautics and Space Administration”, Glenn

Research Center 2016, pp. 1142–1146.

3) Lovtsova A. S., Kravchenko D.A., “Investigation of a Low-power Thruster on

Krypton Propellant”, Russian-German Conference on Electric Propulsion and
Their Application 185, 2017 pp.326-331.

4) Yadav H., Bharadwaj N., Rao D., “A Study and Brief Research On Electric
propulsion Of Spacecraft and Rockets”, International Journal of Application or
Innovation in Engineering and Management 3, 2014, pp. 128-137

5) Choueiri., Edgar Y., "New dawn of electric rocket", Scientific American, 2009,
pp. 58–65

6) P.A. Saevetsa., V.P. Kimb., D.P. Grdlichkoc., P.G. Smirnovd Smirnov.,

“Investigation of a Low-power Thruster on Krypton Propellant”, Russian-German
Conference on Electric Propulsion and Their Application 185, 2017, pp.85-90

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