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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE, VOL. 33, NO. 2, APRIL 2005

Modeling of Double Stage Hall Effect Thruster

C. Boniface, G. J. M. Hagelaar, L. Garrigues, J. P. Boeuf, and M. Prioul

AbstractHall effect thrusters (HETs) are ion sources used for satellite station keeping and orbit raising. In Single Stage HETs, the same electric eld is responsible for electron heating and ion acceleration. We present a new HET concept where ionization and acceleration are separated in two different stages. This double stage HET allows for a more versatile operation and a separate control of thrust and specic impulse. Index TermsElectric propulsion, Hall effect thruster (HET), hybrid model, ion source.

ALL effect thrusters (HETs) are gridless ion engines where a magnetic eld barrier is used to lower the electron conductivity and create a large electric eld that provides collisionless ion acceleration [1]. The specic impulse of HETs is in the range of 16002000 s (i.e., the velocity of ejected xenon ions is on the order of 1620 km/s) and the thrust to power ratio is about 70 mN/kW. The thrust and the specic impulse of standard single stage HETs (SSHETs) are well adapted to tasks such as northsouth station keeping, but cannot be varied and optimized independently because the same electric eld controls the electron impact ionization and the ion acceleration. Modern satellite propulsion, however, demands exible multimode thrusters able to provide high thrust for orbit raising or transfer, and high specic impulse for satellite station keeping. High thrust with high mass ow rate and low voltage reduces the duration of orbit transfers, while high specic impulse with high voltage and low mass ow rate is needed to minimize gas consumption during station keeping. A new HET concept in which ionization and ion acceleration are controlled independently has been recently proposed [2][4]. This double stage HET (DSHET) uses a separate chamber to ionize the gas ow, while the ion acceleration is provided by the electric eld generated in a magnetic eld barrier, as in standard SSHETs. The ionization stage and the classical acceleration stage can be seen in the diagram of Fig. 1. The plasma in the ionization stage is conned by a semi Galathea trap [5] generated by a special arrangement of coils and magnetic circuit. By imposing appropriate voltage drops between the myxina coil, the separatrix magnetic eld line, and the metallic chamber wall (see Fig. 1), a potential well is

Fig. 1. Schematic of the DSHET showing the ionization and acceleration stages. Intermediate electrode serves as the anode of the acceleration stage and the cathode of the ionization stage, where it is intercepted by the separatrix magnetic eld line.

Manuscript received June 25, 2004; revised September 16, 2004. This work was supported by the European Space Agency under Contract 16 723/02/NL/CP. C. Boniface, G. J. M. Hagelaar, L. Garrigues, and J. P. Boeuf are with the Centre de Physique des Plasmas et Applications de Toulouse, Universit Paul Sabatier, 31062 Toulouse Cedex 4, France (e-mail: boniface@cpat.ups-tlse.fr). M. Prioul is with SNECMA Moteurs, 77550 Moissy-Cramayel, France. Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TPS.2005.845117

created that connes the ions and guides them to the entrance of the channel, where they are subsequently accelerated and ejected. Note that in this kind of magnetized plasma, magnetic eld lines tend to be equipotential. The minimum potential in the ionization chamber is along the separatrix line, and is close to the potential of the anode of the acceleration stage. The maximum potential (3050 V above the latter) is along the myxina and the chamber wall. Electrons coming from the channel into the ionization chamber are trapped along the magnetic eld lines and then drift slowly toward the myxina and chamber wall due to collisions with neutrals. A quasi-neutral hybrid model, similar to the one describe in [6], has been adapted to the DSHET of Fig. 1. In this model, the ions and neutral atoms are described with a particle-in-cell simulation. The electric eld is deduced from the electron momentum equation (generalized Ohmslaw), knowing the plasma density and ion current from the ion simulation. The electron energy and ionization rate can be obtained either from uid equations assuming a Maxwellian electron energy distribution, or from a Monte Carlo simulation of the electron trajectories. The results shown in Fig. 2 have been obtained with the Monte Carlo treatment of the electrons. We see in Fig. 2(a) (bottom), the trapping of ions in the potential well (b) in the ionization chamber and their extraction and acceleration (a)(top) in the channel.

0093-3813/$20.00 2005 IEEE

BONIFACE et al.: MODELING OF DOUBLE STAGE HALL EFFECT THRUSTER

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Fig. 2. (a) (top) Calculated ionization rate (log scale over three decades, from yellow to red, maximum 4 10 cm s ) and examples of ion trajectories; (a) (bottom) positions of a sample of ions in the simulation; (b) potential distribution inside the thruster (only part of the channel is represented). Conditions: xenon mass ow rate 2.5 mg/s, applied voltage in the acceleration channel 300 V, applied voltage in the ionization chamber 30 V.

These preliminary simulation results and the experimental results of [4] show that the DSHET concept is very promising. More work is needed to better understand its possibilities and limits, and to optimize the ion extraction from the ionization chamber.

REFERENCES
[1] V. V. Zhurin, H. R. Kaufmann, and R. S. Robinson, Physics of closed drift thrusters, Plasma Sources Sci. Technol., vol. 8, pp. R1R20, 1999. [2] O. Secheresse, A. Bugrova, and A. I. Morozov, SNECMA Patent 03 08 384, Jul. 9, 2003. [3] E. Chesta et al., Flexible variable-specic impulse electric propulsion systems for planetary missions, in 5th Int. Conf. Low-Cost Planetary Missions, SP-542, Sep. 2426, 2003. [4] M. Prioul et al., Development of a double stage Hall effect thruster, presented at the 4th Int. Spacecraft Propulsion Conf., Sardinia, Italy, Jun. 2004. [5] A. I. Morozov and V. V. Savelev, On galateas magnetic traps with plasma-embedded conductors, Physics-Uspekhi, vol. 41, pp. 10491089, 1998. [6] G. J. M. Hagelaar, J. Bareilles, L. Garrigues, and J. P. Boeuf, Twodimensional model of a stationary plasma thruster, J. Appl. Phys., vol. 91, pp. 55925598, 2002.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank E. Chesta and E. Gengembre from the ESA for their helpful discussions. Discussions with A. I. Morozov, A. Bugrova, and V. V. Savelev on the DSHET concept are also gratefully acknowledged.