(c)2001 American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics or Published with Permission of Author(s) and/or Author(s)' Sponsoring Organization.

A01-34228

AIAA 2001 -3491

BIT 15S - A Radio Frequency Ion

Engine for High Specific Impulse
Operation

Hans.J. Leiter
Astrium GmbH Munich (Germany)

Davar Feili
1st Institute of Physics
University GieBen
(Germany)

37th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion

Conference & Exhibit
8-11 July
Salt Lake City, Utah
For permission to copy or to republish, contact the copyright owner named on the first page.
For AIAA-held copyright, write to AIAA Permissions Department,
1801 Alexander Bell Drive, Suite 500, Reston, VA, 20191-4344.
 (c)2001 American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics or Published with Permission of Author(s) and/or Author(s)' Sponsoring Organization.

AIAA-2001-3491
RIT15S - A RADIO FREQUENCY ION ENGINE FOR HIGH
SPECIFIC IMPULSE OPERATION
Hans J. Leiter1'*, D. Feili2.
^strium IP47, P.O.Box 801168, Munich 81663, Germany
2
I. Physikalisches Institut der Universitat Giessen, D-35392 Giessen, Germany.
* e-mail: hans.leiter@astrium-space.com

Abstract
The significant increase of available electric power for the propulsion unit onboard satellites makes high and ultra-high
specific impulse thrusters attractive for different applications and missions. Especially thrusters of the radio frequency type
show a great potentiality for high Isp applications. Two different rf-thrusters are described: The RIT15LP engine optimized
for a moderate input power consumption and the RIT15S designed for a high specific impulse. The main, but only difference
between these engines is the extraction grid system. During the development of RIT15LP, principle improvements of rf-
thrusters were invented. The given description of RIT15LP is focused on these performance improvements whereas the
advantages of the rf-principle for (ultra-) high specific impulse applications were pointed out on basis of the RIT15S
thruster.

1 Introduction Assuming a given electric power on board a spacecraft vehi-

The function principle of gridded ion thrusters can be de-
scribed as a two step process. In the first step the propellant
is ionized and after that, in the second step it is accelerated
in the electrostatic fields of an ion extraction and acceler-
ation grid system. Both tasks a nearly independent from
each other. The acceleration has no effect on the ionisation
process and therefore the beam velocity can simply be con-
trolled by the selection of the voltages applied to the grid
system. Amoung different types of electric thrusters this
is a unique feature of all gridded ion engines. In contrast,
the use of other electric propulsion concepts requires often
deep changes in the thruster design for an increased beam
velocity. For example, it was necessary to invent a two stage
concept for SPTs to reach a beam velocity comparable with
that of gridded thrusters. Such efforts are not required in
case of the later ones.
Presently, the beam velocity of gridded ion thrusthers is
merely limited by their electric input power consumption
and not in a conceptional way. It is important to be aware
that the specific input power consumption (the total con-
sumption of electric power Ptot over the thrust F, usually
given in> lu Watt per Millinewton'") of any kind of thruster is
a simple function of the beam velocity Vbeam and the electric
efficiency of the thrusters rjel:
Ptot Vbeam
(1)
Thus the lower specific electric input power consumption of
SPTs or Arcjets is a direct consequence of the lower beam
velocity of these devices. On the other hand the specific im-
pulse Is is also a linear function of v^eam and the utilization
of the propellant 7ym. So the price for the low specific elec-
tric power consumption is the poorer use of the propellant:
Vbea
(2)
°©ASTRIUM GmbH, I.Physik. Inst. Uni. Giessen
cle, one has to find the best compromise between the reach-
able thrust (1) and an economical use of the propellent (2).
Some years ago, the electric power available for the
propulsion system was only small and consequently the dis-
cussion about different types of electric propulsion systems
was mainly focused on the specific input power consump-
tion, but presently the situation changes drastically. With
the availability of high performance solar-cells the usable
electric power has increased significantly and it is no longer
that limiting factor as it was up to now. In the same way the
importance of wspec decreases the specific impulse, respec-
tively the propellant consumption becomes more and more
important1. This tendency will enable the advantageous
usage of high specific impulse electric propulsion systems.
But high Is is the domain of "classical" gridded ion engines.
Without any principle design changes Is values of more than
5000s are possible and interesting studies for ultra high Is
were presently performed [1]. However our work is focused
on a moderate augmentation of I8. For that the thrusters
grid system has to be optimized only slightly. The thrusters
beam velocity depends on the beamvoltage U as follows:
Vbeam = (3)
(Only single charched ions were assumed. raion=atomic
mass of ions, e=elementar charge) Although the layout of a
grid system for a high beam velocity itself is not a critical
task, the required high voltage might cause some serious dif-
ficulties for the common Kaufman- Thruster concept. These
can be totally omitted using the radiofrequency principle for
the ionisation of the propellant instead: The cathode for the
de-discharge inside the ionizer vessel of a Kaufman-type en-
gine is replaced by a radiofrequency coil outside the vessel.
lr
The design of some SPTs for a specific impulse in the range of
3000s, the typical operational field of conventional designed gridded
ion engines underlines this aspect
 (c)2001 American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics or Published with Permission of Author(s) and/or Author(s)' Sponsoring Organization.
The electro magnetic field induced by the rf-coil generates
the selfsustaining discharge inside the ionizer.
Often the advantages of rf-thrusters have been under-
lined, especially the absence of a lifetime critical cathode
inside the discharge chamber, but there are two field hi
which the rf-principle shows its real superiority: The oper-
ation with high beam currents and the operation with high
beam voltages. Both aspects will be described exemplary in
the light of the new HIT 15S in the following.
2 Radio-Frequency-Ion Thrusters
The rf-principle was invented in the sixties by Prof. L(3b at
Giessen University/Germany. Since that a whole family of
different sized ion thrusters has been successfully developed
and tested there. One of these thrusters, the HIT 10 engine
2 nents, on the other hand aspects of space qualifications have
is commercially available in an entire propulsion package
RITA by ASTRJUM GmbH (Germany).
RJTA is fully space qualified and presently two RIT 10
thrusters are mounted together with two British UK-10
Kaufman-type engines onboard the European technology
satellite ARTEMIS which will be launched next year. Al-
though ASTRJUM has developed an thrust enlarged ver-
sion RIT 10 EVO, it is obvious that a thruster of that size
is not the most advantageous solution for the new genera-
tion of heavy geosyncronous satellites, especially when ex-
tended spiral-up and -down maneouvers should be flown
electrically [2]. Therefore ASTRIUM decided to build up a
100-150mN class gridded ion thruster RJT-XT basing on
the rf-principle. The gap between the small RIT 10 engine
and the high thrust RJT-XT is closed by the 50mN HIT
15 thruster. This thruster is developed independent from
ASTRJUM by the University of Giessen under a contract
given by the German space agency DLR/-Zentrum [3].
3 The RIT 15 Ion Engines
3.1 Background and thruster Design
When MBB, respectivly ASTRJUM, started the commercial
development of the RIT 10 in the early seventies, at Giessen
University the research work on a thrust enlarged engine
began [4, 7).
The principle concept of the thruster remained unaltered,
only the dimensions where changed. The 10cm diameter
discharge chamber and the extraction grid of the same di-
ameter were replaced by parts of 15cm diameter. First tests
confirmed that the doubled extraction area enabled a dou-
bled thrust too. In theoretical and experimental studies
the length of the ionisation chamber was optimised later on
and so significant improvements were achieved. Although
the work on the RJT 15 engine was rather successfully, the
2 3
RIT=/?adio Frequency /on Thruster, the number behind the ab-
breviation indicates the diameter of the discharge chamber. This is
in opposition to commonly used nomenclatures, where the number
describes the diameter of the beam (UK-10 for example)
activities at Giessen University were focused on bigger en-
gines like the RJT 35 until the development of RJT 15 was
continued in the eighties [6, 8, 9]. The main progress then
was the successfully adaptation of the thruster on xenon
as propellant. Worldwide this noble gas has replaced the
formerly used mercury.
1995, the work on RIT15 was intensified again when the
big gap between the small RJT10 and the large auxilliary
propulsion systems like RJT35 and ESA-XX had become
obvious. This work was done under the above mentioned
contract with the German space agency. That contract em-
braces the development of an "advanced breadboard en-
gineering model" as well as principle investigations in the
design of radio frequency ion thrusters.
Prom the beginning of the project both aspects have been
considered: On the one hand the thruster was designed very
modular to enable systematic studies on different compo-
been obtained too.
A comprehensive description of the thruster design can
be found in [3, 11] hence the thruster is described here only
very briefly again: All thruster components of RJT 15 are
mounted in a aluminum case of 17cm length and a diameter
of 21cm. The ionizer has an inner diameter of 15cm and a
length of 7cm. The grid system is mounted via a special ring
on the ionizer vessel. This special design makes it possible
to change the grids or the ionizer vessel without any other
changes on the thruster design. The grid system itself has
a "flat grid" layout. Since 1999 the single grids were made
of a special carbon composite material [12].
4 RJT15LP
4.1 Objectives
Originally, most of the RJT-thrusters developed at Giessen
University were operated with a beam voltage of 1500-
2000V. The high beam voltage enabled a specific impulse
in the range of 4000s. The first layout of the new bread-
board engineering model RJT15 under the DLR/-Zentrum
contract was designed in the same way. Presented in 1997,
this thruster showed a very fine operation, but the per-
formance data were not really "state of the art", because
the total power consumption of 1750W (= 35W/mN)a,t the
nominal thrust level and a specific impulse of "only" 4000s
missed the demands of the market. Especially SPT-type
engines with specific power consumption values from 15 up
to 20W/mN seemed to be superior at this time 3. There
are two reasons for the high specific power consumption of
RJT15: How equation (1) together with (3) teaches, a beam-
voltage of 2000V forces in any case wspec = 27.11W/mN
solely for the beam acceleration (see also fig. 1. Moreover
electric power for the ionisation of the propellant is also re-
qired. At this time, nearly 600W rf-pwer were needed to
On the other hand their propellant consumption is significantly
higher as their lower specific impulse (typically < 1500s) indicates. In
other words: These devices need more than two times of propellant
for the same thrust as the presented RIT 15.
 (c)2001 American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics or Published with Permission of Author(s) and/or Author(s)' Sponsoring Organization.
beam acceleration only
1000 2000 3000
beam voltage [V]
Figure 1: Theoretical specific power consumption
over the beam voltage for different "ion production
costs".(Propellant: Xenon)
generate one ampere of beam current. This results in an
amount of another ~ 8W/mN specific power consumption.
With a reduction of the beam voltage from the for-
merly 2000V to ~ 1000V a specific impulse of at least
2600s seemed reachable. So RIT15 should be place between
our original high impulse concept and the typical perfor-
mance of a SPT. But at this state the lower beam volt-
age alone would have been not sufficient to reach a wspec
below 25W/mN if the ion production costs had been unal-
tered. Fig. 1 indicates, that these must not exceed 300W/A
(300eV per ion, respectively). Additionally, the reduction of
the ion production costs was mandatory for another reason:
The nominal thrust of 50mN should be unaltered, therefore
a 1.4 times higher beam current was necessary. This would
have resulted in a thermal overload of the truster, if the ion
production costs remained unchanged. Thus with the devel-
opment of RIT15LP (LP means low power consumption4)
mainly two things had to be achieved:
1. The design of a grid system for a beam voltage of ditions. Even the used high-frequency generator was similar
1000V.
2. The reduction of the ion production costs.
The first item is specific for RIT15LP whereas the sec- be performed without any problem.
ond one is from principal interest for radio frequency ion
thrusters. So this item will be explained a bit more com-
prehensive in the next section.
4
Unfortunately the abbreviation LP was used for laboratory pro- usage of so called "high perveance" grids reduces also the
totyp in some of the former publications of our group!
Figure 2: The electrical test setup. (PHV=positive high
voltage, NHV^negative high voltage, IGN=dgniting volt-
age, PREMA^digital voltmeter for temprature sensors etc.,
RFG—radio frequency generators, RFGS=power supply for
RFC, NS—neutraliser power supply, NBIAS=neutraliser
BIAS voltage, F^flow controller, MFC—flow controller in-
terface, POIBM compatible PC, IEEE=IEEE interface)
5 Principle performance improve-
ments
5.1 Test set-up
The presented data were all gained at the jumbo vacuum
facility of Giessen University. The facility consists of a
main vacuum chamber of 5m in length and 2.3m in diam-
eter, a smaller chamber called "hatch" which is connected
to the main chamber with a gate valve and the system of
pumps. Two oil diffusion pumps with a nominal speed of
50.0001/s (N2) were installed together with two additional
turbomolecular pumps.
Astriums standard test power supply ("TPS") was used
for the tests (fig.2). This power supply was originally build
up for the qualification tests of RITA for ARTEMIS. There-
fore the presented data were gained under very realistic con-
to the space qualified one for ARTEMIS. The only disad-
vantage of the TPS was the limited output power. Thus
the systematic studies on RJT15LP were made with only
the halve of the nominal thrust. Later the TPS was power-
enlarged. Then the test on the nominal thrust level could
5.1.1 The grid system
It was known from bombardment-type ion engines, that the
ion production costs. For rf-engines only few experiences
3
 (c)2001 American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics or Published with Permission of Author(s) and/or Author(s)' Sponsoring Organization.

with such grids existed. So in a first development phase the

activities were focused on that topic.
A lot of problems had to be solved before a stable opera-
tion with nominal thrust level had become possible. Espe-
cially, the thermal expansion of the screen grid caused se-
rious difficulties. Finally all the problems were solved with 60.0

the development of fully carbon-composite made grids. A

more detailed description is given in [12]. -75.0 mm •

Prom special interest was the thickness of the screen grid.

On the one hand it should be maid as thin as possible to
achieve best performance, on the other hand the mechan-
ical properties were much easier to handle with a thicker
grid. Three different screen grids with a thickness of 0.3mm,
0.4mm and 0.5mm were compared. The result was straight
forward: Only with the 0.3mm accel the required perveance
was achievable and even in this case the total extraction
voltage of 1600V was slightly higher than expected. Never-
theless with a beamvoltage of 1125V and a decel grid voltage
of 475V the thruster showed very fine operation. A sum-
mary of the complete performance data is given in table 2,
additional information can be found in [12, 13].
Besides the lower perveance of the other two grid sets
their use requires significantly more rf-power for the same
beam current. For example the 0.4mm screen needs about
10% more and the 0.5mm screen requires 20%more rf-power
than the 0.3mm screen (operated with a mass efficiency of
70%). Two opossite tendencies were observed: On the one
side, the influence of the screen grid thickness increases with
the beam current, on the other side the influence is slightly
lower at higher mass efficiency. The highest absolute mass
efficiency was reached with the 0.3mm grid set (see [13] for
a comparison).
5.1.2 The influence of the discharge vessel design
In addition to the experiments, simulations of the ion ex-
traction have been performed using the well known IGUN-
Code. They explained the influence of the screen grid thick-
ness on the ion production costs: In case of high plasma
densities the discharge plasma moves deep inside the ex-
traction channels of the grid system. In this case a notable
fraction of ions recombinates with electrons on the walls
of the extraction channel. These ions are not extracted in
the beam but have to be generated additionally inside the
discharge plasma. So the balance of charge carriers is influ-
enced negatively. Under worse circumstances the amount
of lost ions by wall recombinations reaches the same order
as the extracted ion current (see. [3]). The employment of
thin screen grids suppresses that effect.
But the extraction channels are only one place where
recombination-losses occur. A much higher amount gets
lost by recombination on the walls of the discharge ves-
sel. Indeed these recombinations are the main process for
carrier- and power-losses of a rf-discharge. Therefore prin-
cipal investigations where undertaken to find the optimal
length of the discharge vessel. This work was done in the
early phase of thruster design at our institute.
The idea behind the optimation is as follows: If the length
•12.5 mm
Figure 3: Dimensions of the two compared discharge vessels
of the chamber is chosen too long, the bigger surface causes
a higher rate of recombination losses. On the other side,
in a shorter discharge vessel the probability that an atom
becomes ionized before it leaves the thruster through the
grid system is lower. So the mass efficiency decreases. It
can be shown that the optimal length of the discharge vessel
depends on the atomic mass of the propellant. A heavier
propellant enables a shorter discharge vessel and thus the
total amount of recombinations is lower. In that way the
length of the RJT15 ionizer was optimized for mercury and
later on for xenon.
For RIT15LP another idea was realized: The cylindrical
vessel was replaced by a semi spherical shaped ionizer (fig.
3). So the area for wall recombinations was reduced with-
out lowering the ionization rate. The special design of the
breadboard engineering model with its separately mounted
grids enabled the change of the discharge vessel without any
other modifications on the thruster. Especially slight dif-
ferences in the grid system which might have a significant
effect on the rf-power consumption were excluded.
Both vessels were tested together with two different grid
sets (0.3mm and 0.5mm screen). The results were the same
for each of them: The ion production costs were reduced
by the use of the semi spherical vessel up to 23%. Only at
low beam currents (100-200mA) the influence of the shape
of the discharge vessel is somewhat lower (fig.4).
So, after the successful tests of the high perveance grid-
sets the introduction of the new ionizer shape was the deci-
sive breakthrough. The further performance-mappings for
the nominal thrust level demonstrated, that ion production
costs below 300W/A were realized [12, 13].
 (c)2001 American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics or Published with Permission of Author(s) and/or Author(s)' Sponsoring Organization.

260 -

240 -
Thrust 22.27mN 31.92mN 40.32mN
—220 -

I200 "
u+ 1500V 1500V 1500V
5180 -
U- 400V 900V 700V
c
0)160 -
Ibeam 374mA 499mA 630mA
-t: Iacc 5.21mN 6.707mA 9.5mA
£120 -
PHF HOW 180W 208W
|100 - 'Imass 0.71 0.85 0.84
.E 80 - Is 3200s 4094s 4035s
o
"° 60 -——A——-A———A———A-——-A———A Ptotal 605W 944W 1173W
40 - Vel 0.80 0.793 0.73
20 V 0.57 0.67 0.67
2 4 6 8 10 12 PTTR 27.8W/mN 30W/mN 29.5W/mN
xenon propellant flow [seem]

Table 1: RIT15S: Points of operation with a modified

RIT15LP grid set
Figure 4: Comparison of required rf-power over mass flow
(propellant: xenon) Nominal Operation
Thrust: 50mN
Beam Voltage: 1125V
6 RIT15S Beam Current: 900mA
Total power consumption: 1275W-1325W
The thrust of RIT15LP is presently limited by the
perveance-limit of the grid system. A higher extraction
Specific Impulse: 2900s-3600s
voltage would enable even now a higher beam current, but
Throtteling Range: 2.5-50mN
Total Efficiency 67%
an increased decel grid voltage would result in a poorer
beam divergence as well as it might affect the lifetime of
Ion Production Costs: 275eV(opt.)
the grid. One the other side a higher screen grid voltage
Mass Efficiency: up to 92%
Specific Power Consumption: 25.5W/mN-26.5WmN
would directly increase the input power consumption and
this is contrary to the idea of RJT15LP.
The introduction pointed out, that the specific power con- Table 2: Performance data of the rf-thruster RIT15LP
sumption will not be as important as now in the nearer
future. So the idea of RIT15S5 was born. Our current work
is focused on that engine. somewhat higher than that of RIT15LP due to the higher
A new grid system was designed and manufactured. Sim- transparency. This should lead to a further performance im-
ilar to the RIT15LP grids it is fully made of carbon com- provement because all performance mappings up to now are
posite. It has a slightly higher transparency because due to confirming that the ion production costs (fig. 5) decrease
the higher extraction voltage the diameter of the grid holes with an higher beam current. This is caused by the fact that
where chosen to 3.0mm (RIT15S — 1.9mm) together with the ion production costs are mainly determined by the rate
an unaltered distance between the holes (0.3mm). So a fur- of electron and ion recombinations on the discharge cham-
ther decrease of the ion production costs is expected. The ber walls. These losses decrease with the pressure inside
grid set will be tested as soon as the high voltage supply the discharge chamber (oc p~l) whereas the rate of direct
of the TPS is upgraded. Presently, the high voltage is still recombinations in the volume remains still negligible.
limited to 1500V. Nevertheless the high Is development is At high beam current operation, the cathodeless design of
successfully underway. the rf-thrusters shows its superiority: One can easily in-
As a first step RIT15LPs distance between screen- and ac- crease the required plasma density for a higher beam current
celgrid was increased from formerly 0.6mm to 0.85mm. This without limitations like the maximum discharge voltage or
decreases the perveance and allows to study the thrusters discharge current of the commonly used de-discharge. Only
behavior under higher extraction voltage conditions. In- the power of the rf-generator has to be enlarged.
stead of the desired screen grid voltage the potential of the Especially for high Is operation the cathodeless design offers
accelerator grid was increased. Some results are given in a second decisive economical advantage: Only new voltage
table 1. As expected the specific impulse Is as well as the converters for the beam acceleration have to be developed
power to thrust ratio have been increased of about 10% whereas the rf-power converter (rf-generator) remains unal-
with the increase of the beamvoltage from 1125V to 1500V. tered.
Considering the extraction voltage shows that a stable op-
eration of the grid set with a beamvoltage of 2000V will be 7 Summary
possible. The nominal beam current of RIT15S is expected
5
S = Scientific; For ambitious scientific missions the specific im- Gridded ion engines offer a great flexibility for the adap-
pulse /s is even nowadays from special interest. tation on changing market demands. Merely the grid sys-
(c)2001 American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics or Published with Permission of Author(s) and/or Author(s)' Sponsoring Organization.

[6] K.H.Groh, A.Dillmann, H.W.Lob, F.Weber: Auxiliary

Propulsion RF-Engine HIT 15 - Prototype Design and Per-
700 formance
600-
650 IEPC-88-034 1988 Garmisch-Partenkirchen
550- 600
[7] H.W.LOb. J.Freisinger, K.H.Groh, A.Scharmann: State-of-
!" 500- 550
the-Art of the RIT-Ion Thrusters and their Spin-Offs

H
o 400-
500
450
I
^<S IAF-88-258 1988 Bangalore

[8] K.H.Groh, N.Kreiling, H.W.Lob, Th.Schmidtkunz,

400
F.Zarnitz: Recent Performance Results of the RIT15
350
300- Auxiliary Propulsion Engine
300
250- IEPC-91-082 1991 Viareggio
250
200-
— 200 [9] K.H.Groh, H.W.LOb, J.Fell, N.Kreiling, F.Zarnitz: Recent
100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 Electric propulsion Activities at Giessen University
Beam Current [mA]
AIAA-91-2119 1991 Scramento

[10] H.Leiter, K.Groh, H.LSb: RIT15- ein neues lonentriebw-

Figure 5: RIT15LP Ion production costs over ion beam
(propellant: xenon)
tern has to be optimized for the required /s, respectively
Wspez- This has been successfully demonstrated for the
class of radio frequency ion thrusters on the basis of the
development of RIT15LP and RJT15S. The only difference
between both engines is the thrusters grid system. The
work on RIT15LP is finished whereas the development of
RIT15S is still ongoing. Further performance improvements
are expected. But the major decisive improvement of radio-
frequency ion thrusters performance has been achieved al-
ready with RIT15LP: The introduction of a new shaped
ionizer reduced the ion production costs of about 25%.
erk zur Stabilisierung von Satelliten und zum Antrieb von
Raumsonden
DGLR-Jahrbuch fur Luft- und Raumfahrt 1997
[11] K.H.Groh, H.J.Leiter and H.W. Loeb: Design and Perfor-
mance of the New RF-Ion Thruster RIT 15
AIAA Paper 98-3344
[12] H.J.Leiter, H.W. Loeb K.-H. Schartner: RIT15S AND
RIT15LP- The Development of high performance mission
optimized ion thrusters
AIAA-Paper 99-2444
[13] H.J.Leiter, H.W.Loeb and K.-H.Schartner: Performance
improvement of radiofrequency ion thrusters - The evolu-
tion of the RIT 15 ion engine
IEPC-99-154

References

[1] D.G.Fearn: The potential future capabilities of gridded ion

thrusters,
Proceedings 3rd International Conference on Spacecraft
Propulsion, p 405-412 Cannes, France 2000

[2] R.Killinger, H.Bassner, J.Muller, R.Kukies,

H.J.LeitenHigh performance RF-ion thruster de-
velopement (RIT XT) - Performance and durability
test results, AIAA-2001-3488, 2001, Salt Lake City.
[3] K.H.Groh, H.J.Leiter, H.W.Lob: RIT15- A medium thrust
range radio-frequency ion thruster
Proceedings of the Second European Spacecraft Propulsion
conference, p.252-257 ESTEC Nordwijk 1997

[4] J.Freisinger, S.Reinek, E.Rumpf, H.W.LOb: RIT 15- Labo-

ratory Prototype of a 20mN NSSK Engine
AIAA-76-1038 1976 Key Biscane

[5] K.H.Groh, H.W.Lob, H.W. Velten :RIT15 - A Laboratory

Prototype of a Scaled-Up Inert Gas Rf-Thruster,
IEPC 84-661984 Tokyo