Electric Propulsion:

Ion and Hall Thrusters

INTRODUCTION -
Electric propulsion
Electric Propulsion (EP) is a class of space propulsion which
makes use of electrical power to accelerate a propellant by
different possible electrical and/or magnetic means. The use
of electrical power enhances the propulsive performances of
the EP thrusters compared with conventional chemical
thrusters. Unlike chemical systems, electric propulsion
requires very little mass to accelerate a spacecraft. The
propellant is ejected up to twenty times faster than from a
classical chemical thrusters and therefore the overall system is
many times more mass efficient.
Electric Propulsion, when compared with chemical
propulsion, is not limited in energy, but is only limited by the
available electrical power on-board the spacecraft. Therefore
EP is suitable for low-thrust (micro and milli-newton levels)
long-duration applications on board spacecrafts. The
propellant used in EP systems varies with the type of thrusters
and can be a rare gas (i.e. xenon or argon), a liquid metal or,
in some cases, a conventional propellant.
Electric propulsion is now a mature and widely used
technology on spacecraft. Russian satellites have used electric
propulsion for decades and it is predicted that by 2020, half of
all new satellites will carry full electric propulsion. As of
2019, over 500 spacecraft operated throughout the Solar
System use electric propulsion for station keeping, orbit
raising, or primary propulsion In the future, the most
advanced electric thrusters may be able to impart a Delta-v of
100 km/s, which is enough to take a spacecraft to the outer
planets of the Solar System (with nuclear power), but is
insufficient for . An electric rocket with an external power
source (transmissible through laser on the photovoltaic
panels) has a theoretical possibility for interstellar flight.
However, electric propulsion is not a method suitable for
launches from the Earth's surface, as the thrust for such
systems is too weak.

HISTORY
The idea of electric propulsion for spacecraft dates back to
1911, introduced in a publication by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.
Earlier, Robert Goddard had noted such a possibility in his
personal notebook.
Electrically-powered propulsion with a nuclear reactor was
considered by Dr. Tony Martin for interstellar Project
Daedalus in 1973, but the novel approach was rejected
because of very low thrust, the heavy equipment needed to
convert nuclear energy into electricity, and as a result a
small acceleration, which would take a century to achieve the
desired speed.
The demonstration of electric propulsion was an ion
engine carried on board the SERT-1 (Space Electric Rocket
Test) spacecraft, launched on 20 July 1964 and it operated for
31 minutes. A follow-up mission launched on 3 February
1970, SERT-2, carried two ion thrusters, one operated for
more than five months and the other for almost three months.
By the early 2010s, many satellite manufacturers were
offering electric propulsion options on their satellitesmostly
for on-orbit attitude control-while some
commercial communication satellite operators were beginning
to use them for geosynchronous orbit insertion in place of
traditional chemical rocket engines.
Types
Electric propulsion thrusters for spacecraft may be grouped
into three families based on the type of force used to
accelerate the ions of the plasma

[Link]
If the acceleration is caused mainly by the Coulomb force (i.e.
application of a static electric field in the direction of the
acceleration) the device is considered electrostatic.
 Gridded ion thruster
o NASA Solar Technology Application

Readiness (NSTAR)
o HiPEP

o Radiofrequency ion thruster

 Hall effect thruster

o SPT – Stationary Plasma Thruster

o TAL – Thruster with Anode Layer

 Colloid ion thruster

 Field Emission Electric Propulsion
 Nano-particle field extraction thruster

[Link]
The electrothermal category groups the devices where
electromagnetic fields are used to generate a plasma to
increase the temperature of the bulk propellant. The thermal
energy imparted to the propellant gas is then converted into
kinetic energy by a nozzle of either solid material or magnetic
fields. Low molecular weight gases (e.g. hydrogen, helium,
ammonia) are preferred propellants for this kind of system.
An electrothermal engine uses a nozzle to convert the heat of
a gas into linear motion in its molecules, so it is a true rocket
even though the energy producing the heat comes from an
external source.
Performance of electrothermal systems in terms of specific is
somewhat modest (500 to ~1000 seconds), but exceeds that
of cold gas thrusters, monopropellant rockets, and even
most bipropellant rockets. In the USSR, electrothermal
engines were used since 1971; the Soviet "Meteor-3",
"Meteor-Priroda", "Resurs-O" satellite series and
the Russian "Elektro" satellite are equipped with
them.[18] Electrothermal systems by Aerojet (MR-510) are
currently used on Lockheed Martin A2100 satellites
using hydrazine as a propellant.
 Arcjet
 Microwave arcjet
 Resistojet
 Variable specific impulse magnetoplasma
rocket (VASIMR)

3. Electromagnetic
If ions are accelerated either by the Lorentz force or by the
effect of electromagnetic fields where the electric field is not
in the direction of the acceleration, the device is considered
electromagnetic.
 Electrodeless plasma thruster
 Magnetoplasmadynamic thruster
 Pulsed inductive thruster
 Pulsed plasma thruster
 Helicon Double Layer Thruster
Dynamic properties
Electrically-powered rocket engines provide lower thrust
compared to chemical rockets by several orders of
magnitude because of the limited electrical power possible to
provide in a spacecraft. A chemical rocket imparts energy to
the combustion products directly, whereas an electrical system
requires several steps. However, the high velocity and
lower reaction mass expended for the same thrust allows
electric rockets to run for a long time. This differs from the
typical chemical-powered spacecraft, where the engines run
only in short intervals of time, while the spacecraft mostly
follows an inertial trajectory. When near a planet, low-thrust
propulsion may not offset the gravitational attraction of the
planet. An electric rocket engine cannot provide enough thrust
to lift the vehicle from a planet's surface, but a low thrust
applied for a long interval can allow a spacecraft to maneuver
near a planet.
[Link]
If the acceleration is caused mainly by the Coulomb force (i.e.
application of a static electric field in the direction of the
acceleration) the device is considered electrostatic.

ION THRUSTER--
An ion thruster or ion drive is a form of electric
propulsion used for spacecraft propulsion. It creates thrust by
accelerating ions using electricity.
An ion thruster ionizes a neutral gas by extracting
some electrons out of atoms, creating a cloud of positive ions.
These ion thrusters rely mainly on electrostatics as ions are
accelerated by the Coulomb force along an electric field.
Temporarily stored electrons are finally reinjected by
a neutralizer in the cloud of ions after it has passed through
the electrostatic grid, so the gas becomes neutral again and
can freely disperse in space without any further electrical
interaction with the thruster.
Ion thrusters in operational use have an input power need of
1–7 kW exhaust velocity 20–50 km/s thrust 25–250
millinewtons and efficiency 65–80% though experimental
versions have achieved 100 kilowatts (130 hp), 5 newtons.
Ion thrust engines are practical only in the vacuum of space
and cannot take vehicles through the atmosphere because ion
engines do not work in the presence of ions outside the
engine. Additionally, the engine's minuscule thrust cannot
overcome any significant air resistance. Spacecraft rely on
conventional chemical rockets to initially reach orbit.
Fig1.1-NASA's 2.3 kW NSTAR ion thruster for the Deep Space 1 spacecraft
during a hot fire test at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Fig 1.2-High Power Electric Propulsion (HiPEP) is a variation of ion
thruster for use in nuclear electric propulsion applications. It was ground-
tested in 2003 by NASA and was intended for use on the Jupiter Icy Moons
Orbiter, which was canceled in 2005.
 WORKING PRINCIPLE
Ion thrusters use beams of ions (electrically charged atoms or
molecules) to create thrust in accordance with momentum
conservation. The method of accelerating the ions varies, but
all designs take advantage of the charge/mass ratio of the ions.
This ratio means that relatively small potential differences can
create high exhaust velocities. This reduces the amount
of reaction mass or propellant required, but increases the
amount of specific power required compared to chemical
rockets. Ion thrusters are therefore able to achieve
high specific impulses. The drawback of the low thrust is low
acceleration because the mass of the electric power unit
directly correlates with the amount of power. This low thrust
makes ion thrusters unsuited for launching spacecraft into
orbit, but effective for in-space propulsion.

Fig1.3-The gridded ion thruster is a common design for ion

thrusters, a highly efficient low-thrust spacecraft propulsion running
on electrical
The mainpower. Theseisdesigns
difference use high-voltage
the method for accelerating the ions.
grid electrodes to accelerate ions with electrostatic forces.
 Electrostatic ion thrusters use the Coulomb force and
accelerate the ions in the direction of the electric field.
 Electromagnetic ion thrusters use the Lorentz force to move

the ions.
Power supplies for ion thrusters are usually electric solar
panels, but at sufficiently large distances from the Sun,
nuclear power is used. In each case, the power supply mass is
proportional to the peak power that can be supplied, and both
provide, for this application, almost no limit to the energy.
Electric thrusters tend to produce low thrust, which results in
low acceleration. Defining , the standard gravitational
acceleration of Earth, and noting that , this can be
analyzed. A NSTAR thruster producing a thrust force of
92 mN will accelerate a satellite with a mass of 1 Mg by
0.092 N / 1000 kg = 9.2×10−5 m/s2 (or 9.38×10−6 g).
However, this acceleration can be sustained for months or
years at a time, in contrast to the very short burns of chemical
rockets.

Where:
 F is the thrust force in N,
 η is the efficiency
 P is the electrical power used by the thruster in W, and
 Isp is the specific impulse in seconds.
The ion thruster is not the most promising type of electrically
powered spacecraft propulsion, but it is the most successful in
practice to date. An ion drive would require two days to
accelerate a car to highway speed in vacuum. The technical
characteristics, especially thrust, are considerably inferior to
the prototypes described in literature, technical capabilities are
limited by the space charge created by ions. This limits the
thrust density (force per cross-sectional area of the
engine).[4] Ion thrusters create small thrust levels (the thrust of
Deep Space 1 is approximately equal to the weight of one
sheet of paper) compared to conventional chemical rockets,
but achieve high specific impulse, or propellant mass
efficiency, by accelerating the exhaust to high speed.
The power imparted to the exhaust increases with the square
of exhaust velocity while thrust increase is linear. Conversely,
chemical rockets provide high thrust, but are limited in
total impulse by the small amount of energy that can be stored
chemically in the propellants. Given the practical weight of
suitable power sources, the acceleration from an ion thruster is
frequently less than one thousandth of standard gravity.
However, since they operate as electric (or electrostatic)
motors, they convert a greater fraction of input power into
kinetic exhaust power. Chemical rockets operate as heat
engines, and Carnot's theorem limits the exhaust velocity.
Hall-effect thrusters
In spacecraft propulsion, a Hall-effect thruster (HET) is a
type of ion thruster in which the propellant is accelerated by
an electric field. Hall-effect thrusters use a magnetic field to
limit the electrons' axial motion and then use them to ionize
propellant, efficiently accelerate the ions to produce thrust,
and neutralize the ions in the plume. Hall-effect thrusters
(based on the discovery by Edwin Hall) are sometimes
referred to as Hall thrusters or Hall-current thrusters. The
Hall-effect thruster is classed as a moderate specific
impulse (1,600 s) space propulsion technology and has
benefited from considerable theoretical and experimental
research since the 1960s.

FIG 1.4-3KW HALL THRUSTER IN NASA

LABORATORY

FIG 1.5-6KW HALL THRUSTER IN NASA

LABORATORY
Hall thrusters operate on a variety of propellants, the most
common being xenon and krypton. Other propellants of
interest include argon, bismuth, iodine, magnesium and zinc.
Hall thrusters are able to accelerate their exhaust
to speeds between 10 and 80 km/s (1,000–8,000 s specific
impulse), with most models operating between 15 and
30 km/s (1,500–3,000 s specific impulse). The thrust
produced depends on the power level. Devices operating at
1.35 kW produce about 83 mN of thrust. High-power models
have demonstrated up to 5.4 N in the laboratory.[2] Power
levels up to 100 kW have been demonstrated for xenon Hall
thrusters.
As of 2009, Hall-effect thrusters ranged in input power levels
from 1.35 to 10 kilowatts and had exhaust velocities of 10–50
kilometers per second, with thrust of 40–
600 millinewtons and efficiency in the range of 45–60
percent.
The applications of Hall-effect thrusters include control of the
orientation and position of orbiting satellites and use as a main
propulsion engine for medium-size robotic space vehicles.
Operation
The essential working principle of the Hall thruster is that it
uses an electrostatic potential to accelerate ions up to high
speeds. In a Hall thruster, the attractive negative charge is
provided by an electron plasma at the open end of the thruster
instead of a grid. A radial magnetic field of about 100–
300 G (0.01–0.03 T) is used to confine the electrons, where
the combination of the radial magnetic field and axial electric
field cause the electrons to drift in azimuth thus forming the
Hall current from which the device gets its name.

FIG 1.6-Hall thruster. Hall thrusters are largely

axially symmetric. This is a cross-section
containing that axis.

An electric potential between 150 and 800 volts is applied

between the anode and cathode.
The central spike forms one pole of an electromagnet and is
surrounded by an annular space, and around that is the other
pole of the electromagnet, with a radial magnetic field in
between.
The propellant, such as xenon gas, is fed through the anode,
which has numerous small holes in it to act as a gas
distributor. Xenon propellant is used because of its
high atomic weight and low ionization potential. As the
neutral xenon atoms diffuse into the channel of the thruster,
they are ionized by collisions with circulating high-energy
electrons (typically 10–40 eV, or about 10% of the discharge
voltage). Once ionized, the xenon ions typically have a charge
of +1, though a small fraction (~20%) have +2.
The xenon ions are then accelerated by the electric
field between the anode and the cathode. For discharge
voltages of 300 V, the ions reach speeds of around 15 km/s
(9.3 mps) for a specific impulse of 1,500 seconds
(15 kN·s/kg). Upon exiting, however, the ions pull an equal
number of electrons with them, creating a plasma plume with
no net charge.
The radial magnetic field is designed to be strong enough to
substantially deflect the low-mass electrons, but not the high-
mass ions, which have a much larger gyroradius and are
hardly impeded. The majority of electrons are thus stuck
orbiting in the region of high radial magnetic field near the
thruster exit plane, trapped in E×B (axial electric field and
radial magnetic field). This orbital rotation of the electrons is
a circulating Hall current, and it is from this that the Hall
thruster gets its name. Collisions with other particles and
walls, as well as plasma instabilities, allow some of the
electrons to be freed from the magnetic field, and they drift
towards the anode.
About 20–30% of the discharge current is an electron current,
which does not produce thrust, thus limiting the energetic
efficiency of the thruster; the other 70–80% of the current is
in the ions. Because the majority of electrons are trapped in
the Hall current, they have a long residence time inside the
thruster and are able to ionize almost all of the xenon
propellant, allowing mass use of 90–99%. The mass use
efficiency of the thruster is thus around 90%, while the
discharge current efficiency is around 70%, for a combined
thruster efficiency of around 63% (= 90% × 70%). Modern
Hall thrusters have achieved efficiencies as high as 75%
through advanced designs.
Compared to chemical rockets, the thrust is very small, on the
order of 83 mN for a typical thruster operating at 300 V,
1.5 kW. For comparison, the weight of a coin like the U.S.
quarter or a 20-cent Euro coin is approximately 60 mN. As
with all forms of electrically powered spacecraft propulsion,
thrust is limited by available power, efficiency, and specific
impulse.
However, Hall thrusters operate at the high specific
impulses that is typical for electric propulsion. One particular
advantage of Hall thrusters, as compared to a gridded ion
thruster, is that the generation and acceleration of the ions
takes place in a quasi-neutral plasma, so there is no Child-
Langmuir charge (space charge) saturated current limitation
on the thrust density. This allows much smaller thrusters
compared to gridded ion thrusters.
Another advantage is that these thrusters can use a wider
variety of propellants supplied to the anode, even oxygen,
although something easily ionized is needed at the cathode.
Cylindrical Hall thrusters
Although conventional (annular) Hall thrusters are efficient in
the kilowatt power regime, they become inefficient when
scaled to small sizes. This is due to the difficulties associated
with holding the performance scaling parameters constant
while decreasing the channel size and increasing the
applied magnetic field strength. This led to the design of the
cylindrical Hall thruster. The cylindrical Hall thruster can be
more readily scaled to smaller sizes due to its
nonconventional discharge-chamber geometry and
associated magnetic field profile. The cylindrical Hall thruster
more readily lends itself to miniaturization and low-power
operation than a conventional (annular) Hall thruster. The
primary reason for cylindrical Hall thrusters is that it is
difficult to achieve a regular Hall thruster that operates over a
broad envelope from ~1 kW down to ~100 W while
maintaining an efficiency of 45-55%.

External discharge Hall thrusters

Sputtering erosion of discharge channel walls and pole pieces
that protect the magnetic circuit causes failure of thruster
operation. Therefore, annular and cylindrical Hall thrusters
have limited lifetime. Although magnetic shielding has been
shown to dramatically reduce discharge channel wall erosion,
pole piece erosion is still a concern As an alternative, an
unconventional Hall thruster design called external discharge
Hall thruster or external discharge plasma thruster (XPT) has
been introduced. External discharge Hall thruster does not
possess any discharge channel walls or pole pieces. Plasma
discharge is produced and sustained completely in open space
outside the thruster structure, and thus erosion free operation
is achieved.
Applications
Hall thrusters have been flying in space since December 1971
when the Soviets launched an SPT-50 on a Meteor
satellite. Over 240 thrusters have flown in space since that
time with a 100% success rate. Hall thrusters are now
routinely flown on commercial LEO and GEO
communications satellites where they are used for orbital
insertion and stationkeeping.
The first] Hall thruster to fly on a western satellite was a
Russian D-55 built by TsNIIMASH, on the
NRO's STEX spacecraft, launched on October 3, 1998.
The solar electric propulsion system of the European Space
Agency's SMART-1 spacecraft used a Snecma PPS-1350-G
Hall thruster. SMART-1 was a technology demonstration
mission that orbited the Moon. This use of the PPS-1350-G,
starting on September 28, 2003, was the first use of a Hall
thruster outside geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO). Like most
Hall thruster propulsion systems used in commercial
applications, the Hall thruster on SMART-1 could be throttled
over a range of power, specific impulse, and thrust.[24] It has a
discharge power range of 0.46–1.19 kW, a specific impulse of
1,100–1,600 s and thrust of 30–70 mN.