Abstract
Magneto-Plasma-Dynamic (MPD) thrusters have been investigated in Osaka Sangyo
University. The purpose of this study is to develop a practical MPD thruster system for future
transportation among planets and satellites in the Solar System, specially for manned Mars
exploration as one of the In-Space Transportation & Propulsion project in collaboration with
the Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency (JAXA). A magnetic field is applied to an MPD thruster by using permanent magnets of samarium cobalt (SmCo) magnets. In this study, performance characteristics were measured using special gases of carbon dioxide, methane and ammonia as original materials in planets and satellites in the Solar System; that is, propellant can be supplied just on the planets and satellites of Moon, Mars and Jupiter Moons; argon and nitrogen also used in basic experiments. Because operations with carbon dioxide and methane were very unstable compared with cases with other gases, the structure and operational condition should be examined to design a thruster suitable for transportation in the Solar System. On the other hand, a high performance with 5 mg/s of NH3 at 1.0 kW was a thrust of 60 mN, a specific impulse of 1,500 s and a thrust efficiency of 30.0% with an axial magnetic field strength of 0.157 T.
