Broad-beam modeling and experiments for electric spacecraft propulsion

At IOM Leipzig, we developed an efficient grid erosion simulation code. In our approach to ion beam extraction and grid erosion occurring in a multi-g rid multi-aperture ion thruster we break down the complex interplay of pert inent elementary processes into consecutive steps. On the basis of ion opti cal and short-time grid-erosion measurements on a small broad-beam ion sour ce, a comprehensive experimental validation of this code has been done. The good agreement between measured and simulated data furnishes confidence in the methodology. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0034-6748(00)61 802-6].