PLASMA THRUSTER DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM AT THE IRS

Since the early eighties the development of plasma thrusters has been an important research topic at the IRS, where a broad spectrum of stat ionary plasma thrusters has been investigated experimentally as well a s theoretically. High power MPD thrusters (50 kW-1 MW) and a wide rang e of thermal arcjets (0.5-150 kW) are developed under contracts with E SA, NASA, USAF, USNAVY and with German funding. The IRS has excellent installations for continuous tests of high power accelerators. The hig h current power supply is a current regulated d.c. thyristor rectifier of 6 MW. The maximum current is 48 kA with a ripple less than 1%. The vacuum system is a roots pump system consisting of four stages with a total suction power of about 250,000 m3/h at 1 Pa. Eight vacuum tanks of different sizes are connected to this system; six of them are used for plasma thruster development and two serve as plasma wind tunnels. For low power arcjet development and basic cathode erosion experiment s four additional independent test stands are available.