CubeSats have attracted more research interest recently due to their lower cost and shorter production time.A promising technology for CubeSat application is atmosphere-breathing electric propulsion,which can capture ...CubeSats have attracted more research interest recently due to their lower cost and shorter production time.A promising technology for CubeSat application is atmosphere-breathing electric propulsion,which can capture the atmospheric particles as propulsion propellant to maintain longterm mission at very low Earth orbit.This paper designs an atmosphere-breathing electric propulsion system for a 3 U CubeSat,which consists of an intake device and an electric thruster based on the inductively coupled plasma.The capture performance of intake device is optimized considering both particles capture efficiency and compression ratio.The plasma source is also analyzed by experiment and simulation.Then,the thrust performance is also estimated when taking into account the intake performance.The results show that it is feasible to use atmosphere-breathing electric propulsion technology for CubeSats to compensate for aerodynamic drag at lower Earth orbit.展开更多
Atmosphere-Breathing Electric Propulsion(ABEP)can compensate for lost momentum of spacecraft operating in Very Low Earth Orbit(VLEO)which has been widely concerned due to its excellent commercial potential.It is a key...Atmosphere-Breathing Electric Propulsion(ABEP)can compensate for lost momentum of spacecraft operating in Very Low Earth Orbit(VLEO)which has been widely concerned due to its excellent commercial potential.It is a key technology to improve the capture efficiency of intakes,which collect and compress the atmosphere for ABEP.In this paper,the mechanism of the capture section affecting capture efficiency is investigated by Test Particle Monte Carlo(TPMC)simulations with 3D intake models.The inner surface smoothness and average collision number are determined to be key factors affecting capture efficiency,and a negative effect growth model is accordingly established.When the inner surface smoothness is less than 0.2,the highest capture efficiency and its corresponding average collision number interval are independent of the capture section’s geometry and its mesh size.When the inner surface smoothness is higher than 0.2,the capture efficiency will decrease by installing any capture section.Based on the present results,the manufacturing process and material selection are suggested to be prioritized during the intake geometry design in engineering projects.Then,the highest capture efficiency can be achieved by adjusting the length and mesh size of the capture section.展开更多
Plasma discharge stability is an important problem in atmosphere-breathing electric propulsion system when maintaining long-term missions at ultra-low earth orbit.This paper designed an inductively coupled plasma sour...Plasma discharge stability is an important problem in atmosphere-breathing electric propulsion system when maintaining long-term missions at ultra-low earth orbit.This paper designed an inductively coupled plasma source to imitate the ionization section.The effect of inflow rate and Radio Frequency(RF)power on the plasma discharge mode transition is experimentally studied.A discharge mode detection method is proposed,which determines the discharge mode by identifying the morphology of the plasma core.By using the method,the discharge mode transition is quantified and a control model based on the parameter sensitivity is constructed.To verify the method,the spectra are measured and the electron temperature spatial distribution is calculated.And the method has been proven effective.The results show that the inductively coupled discharge contains capacitive components affected by the mass flow rate and the radio frequency power.The plasma characteristics can be maintained stably by controlling the radio frequency power when the mass flow rate randomly changes in a certain range.It is demonstrated that the application of detection method effectively identifies the discharge mode,which is a promising active control method for the plasma discharge mode.展开更多
Plasma chemistry of main Earth atmospheric components in VLEOs is implemented in a hybrid 2D axisymmetric simulation code to assess the air-breathing concept in an electrodeless plasma thruster.Relevant electron-heavy...Plasma chemistry of main Earth atmospheric components in VLEOs is implemented in a hybrid 2D axisymmetric simulation code to assess the air-breathing concept in an electrodeless plasma thruster.Relevant electron-heavy species collisions for diatomic molecules,and atom associative wall recombination into molecules are included.Simulations are run by injecting 1 mg/s of Xe,N2 and O independently for powers between 10 and 3000 W.The performances and trends of plasma response for N2 and O are similar to Xe but displaced to higher powers.Since they have lighter elementary masses,a higher plasma density is generated and more electrons need to be heated.At optimum power,the thrust efficiency for N2 and O surpasses that of Xe,which is caused by the excess of neutral re-ionization and the associated inelastic and wall losses.Additional simulations are run injecting 50/50 of N2/O to study the thruster operation for propellant mixtures,and the performances are found to be linear combinations of those of each propellant in the absence of collisions between heavy species.Injection of O2 is also studied for the impact of the possible associative recombination of O at the intake walls,and the performances are found similar to those of O due to the strong molecular dissociation inside the thruster.展开更多
基金funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. T2221002)
文摘CubeSats have attracted more research interest recently due to their lower cost and shorter production time.A promising technology for CubeSat application is atmosphere-breathing electric propulsion,which can capture the atmospheric particles as propulsion propellant to maintain longterm mission at very low Earth orbit.This paper designs an atmosphere-breathing electric propulsion system for a 3 U CubeSat,which consists of an intake device and an electric thruster based on the inductively coupled plasma.The capture performance of intake device is optimized considering both particles capture efficiency and compression ratio.The plasma source is also analyzed by experiment and simulation.Then,the thrust performance is also estimated when taking into account the intake performance.The results show that it is feasible to use atmosphere-breathing electric propulsion technology for CubeSats to compensate for aerodynamic drag at lower Earth orbit.
基金the auspices of National Key R&D Program of China(No.2020YFC2201100)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.52077169)+1 种基金the State Key Laboratory of Electrical Insulation and Power Equipment,China(No.EIPE22116)HPC Platform,Xi’an Jiaotong University,China。
文摘Atmosphere-Breathing Electric Propulsion(ABEP)can compensate for lost momentum of spacecraft operating in Very Low Earth Orbit(VLEO)which has been widely concerned due to its excellent commercial potential.It is a key technology to improve the capture efficiency of intakes,which collect and compress the atmosphere for ABEP.In this paper,the mechanism of the capture section affecting capture efficiency is investigated by Test Particle Monte Carlo(TPMC)simulations with 3D intake models.The inner surface smoothness and average collision number are determined to be key factors affecting capture efficiency,and a negative effect growth model is accordingly established.When the inner surface smoothness is less than 0.2,the highest capture efficiency and its corresponding average collision number interval are independent of the capture section’s geometry and its mesh size.When the inner surface smoothness is higher than 0.2,the capture efficiency will decrease by installing any capture section.Based on the present results,the manufacturing process and material selection are suggested to be prioritized during the intake geometry design in engineering projects.Then,the highest capture efficiency can be achieved by adjusting the length and mesh size of the capture section.
基金funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. T2221002)the Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation, China (No. 2024JJ5405)
文摘Plasma discharge stability is an important problem in atmosphere-breathing electric propulsion system when maintaining long-term missions at ultra-low earth orbit.This paper designed an inductively coupled plasma source to imitate the ionization section.The effect of inflow rate and Radio Frequency(RF)power on the plasma discharge mode transition is experimentally studied.A discharge mode detection method is proposed,which determines the discharge mode by identifying the morphology of the plasma core.By using the method,the discharge mode transition is quantified and a control model based on the parameter sensitivity is constructed.To verify the method,the spectra are measured and the electron temperature spatial distribution is calculated.And the method has been proven effective.The results show that the inductively coupled discharge contains capacitive components affected by the mass flow rate and the radio frequency power.The plasma characteristics can be maintained stably by controlling the radio frequency power when the mass flow rate randomly changes in a certain range.It is demonstrated that the application of detection method effectively identifies the discharge mode,which is a promising active control method for the plasma discharge mode.
基金funded initially by the HIPATIA project of HORIZON 2020(European Commission),Grant No.GA870542completed with funding from the SUPERLEO project(Agencia Estatal de Investigación,Spanish Government),Grant No.TED2021-132484B-I00The stay of J.Zhou at ISTP-CNR is being supported by the program Recualificación del Sistema Universitario Español,Margarita Salas,of the Ministerio de Universidades(Spanish Government)。
文摘Plasma chemistry of main Earth atmospheric components in VLEOs is implemented in a hybrid 2D axisymmetric simulation code to assess the air-breathing concept in an electrodeless plasma thruster.Relevant electron-heavy species collisions for diatomic molecules,and atom associative wall recombination into molecules are included.Simulations are run by injecting 1 mg/s of Xe,N2 and O independently for powers between 10 and 3000 W.The performances and trends of plasma response for N2 and O are similar to Xe but displaced to higher powers.Since they have lighter elementary masses,a higher plasma density is generated and more electrons need to be heated.At optimum power,the thrust efficiency for N2 and O surpasses that of Xe,which is caused by the excess of neutral re-ionization and the associated inelastic and wall losses.Additional simulations are run injecting 50/50 of N2/O to study the thruster operation for propellant mixtures,and the performances are found to be linear combinations of those of each propellant in the absence of collisions between heavy species.Injection of O2 is also studied for the impact of the possible associative recombination of O at the intake walls,and the performances are found similar to those of O due to the strong molecular dissociation inside the thruster.
