Low Mass Low Power Hall Thruster System, Phase II

In NASA is seeking an electric propulsion system capable of producing 20mN thrust with input power up to 1000W and specific impulse ranging from 1600-3500 seconds. The key technical challenge of the topic is the target mass of 1kg for the thruster and 2kg for the power processor (PPU). In Phase 1 Busek develop an overall subsystem design for the thruster/cathode, PPU and XFS. The feasibility of a low mass power processing architecture that replaces four of the DC-DC converters of a typical PPU with a single multi-functional converter and a low mass Hall thruster design employing permanent magnets was demonstrated. In Phase 2 effort will develop an engineering prototype model of the low mass BHT-600 Hall thruster system with the primary focus on the low mass PPU and thruster. The broad technical objectives are: 1) Design, fabricate and demonstrate an engineering model version of the low mass, Hall thruster PPU developed in Phase 1. The target mass is 2kg. 2) Design, fabricate and demonstrate a low mass version of the BHT-600 thruster The target mass and efficiency is 1 kg and >45%, respectively. 3) Conduct an integrated system test and deliver the prototype PPP and thruster system to NASA. More »