Abstract
For a main propulsion system of small satellite or precise attitude control of various size satellites, a miniaturized microwave ion thruster based on HAYABUSA μ10 neutralizer was fabricated. This thruster has a 1.6cm beam diameter grid system with high hole number density for the improvement of beam extraction. Through the experiments, it was evaluated that the typical thruster performance was the thrust of 0.34mN, the thrust/power ratio of 16mN/kW, the propellant utilization efficiency of 68% and the specific impulse of 3,200s. Judging from the comparison with the other small thruster performance, it was estimated that this thruster can be a candidate for the small thruster.
