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.
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