2022 Volume 7 Pages 20-27
A large amount of propellant is consumed for the construction and maintenance of space solar power systems. As a propulsion system suitable for mass transportation, a miniature water Hall thruster is being developed. An anode, a main discharge part, was successfully discharged by water, and the performance was estimated to be 130 W of discharge power, 3.4 mN of thrust, and 460 s of specific impulse. A cathode, an electron supply part, was conducted spectroscopic measurements, and the performance was estimated to be 110 W of power consumption and 490 mA of electron current. In the future, the discharge of the anode will be maintained and the electron current from the cathode will be extracted, and then a coupling operation will be performed.
