Development of a microthrust balance and ion beam measurement system: Characterizing a dual-mode thruster for spacecraft

Little, Bryan; Jugroot, Manish

doi:10.1016/j.vacuum.2019.01.031

Cited by 12 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…This may be attributed to the limited extraction voltage of 2.5 kV with the setup used. This limit was imposed by the in-housemanufactured electronics that were fabricated for this research [5]. Additionally, beam current emissions were two orders of magnitude lower than expected at up to 250 nA.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…Voltage output is measured with a voltage divider coupled to an isolation amplifier. The setup for measurements is described in detail in a recent paper [5].…”

Section: Assembly and Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…III, and the performance characterization results in Sec. V. Note that the data acquisition systems used are detailed in another recent paper by the authors [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bimodal Propulsion System for Small Spacecraft: Design, Fabrication, and Performance Characterization

Little

Jugroot

2020

Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets

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The use of multimodal space propulsion has the benefit of increasing satellite mission flexibility with the ultimate goal of decreasing mission development costs. The present paper explores the development of a dual-mode thruster for small spacecraft. By combining an electrospray within the confines of a cold gas nozzle, the fabricated and tested propulsive device can operate either in a high thrust or high specific impulse mode. The thruster herein makes use of a laser microfabricated porous glass triangular prism electrospray emitter using passively fed ionic liquid (EMI-BF 4 ) as propellant. The electrospray performance has been indirectly quantified with beam current measurements on the order of 200 nA at an extraction voltage of 2.5 kV, which correlates to a significantly lower thrust than expected. For the second thrust mode, cold gas thrust and specific impulse were measured directly to be 7.9 mN and 44 s, respectively, using nitrogen propellant. The operation of this device in both modes has exemplified its potential applicability to microspacecraft while demonstrating the tradeoffs of bimodal thruster design.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…Voltage output is measured with a voltage divider coupled to an isolation amplifier. The setup for measurements is described in detail in a recent paper [5].…”

Section: Assembly and Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Bimodal Propulsion System for Small Spacecraft: Design, Fabrication, and Performance Characterization

Little

Jugroot

2020

Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets

Self Cite

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“…One of the most typical techniques used for thrust measurement involves the concept of the pendulum. In its simplest form, a pendulum thrust balance can be based on a hanging pendulum (Charles et al, 2016;Wong et al, 2012), an inverted pendulum (Haag, 1991;Kokal and Celik, 2017;Asakawa et al, 2020), or be a torsional balance (Ziemer, 2001;Zhou et al, 2013;Soni and Roy, 2013;Little and Jugroot, 2019;Tang et al, 2011;Zhang et al, 2017). There are also more complicated implementations of this, such as the stand for vertically oriented thrust measurement system described in Moeller and Polzin (2010).…”

Section: Pendulum Displacement Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of Submillinewton Thrust Measurements Between a Laser Interferometer and a Load Cell on a Pendulum Balance

Tsifakis

Charles

Boswell

2021

Front. Space Technol.

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Reliable measurements of thrust from systems to be flown on satellites are essential to ensure repeatable maneuvering capability of small nanosatellites. Thrusters can be used to vary spacecraft orientation, detumbling, and orbit change. Tests have been conducted in a low-pressure vacuum system using a cold gas prototype thruster and two independently calibrated methods: a four-point pendulum with a laser interferometer displacement sensor and a load cell, both of which have measurement capabilities from tens of micronewtons to tens of millinewtons. The agreement is very good, lending confidence in both methods. The advantages and disadvantages of both methods will be discussed. They include absolute accuracy, low thrust accuracy, temporal resolution, simplicity of operation, cost, and sensitivity to vibrations generated by laboratory equipment such as pumps, fans, bumps, and human movement.

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“…Considering the TWR of the micro-thrust to be measured, the horizontal motion of the torsion balance can effectively isolate the impact of the thruster's gravitational weight on the measurement [8,9]. According to the objects of thrust balance, the balance can be divided into two modes: steady state measurement and dynamic measurement [10].…”

Section: Thrust Balance Setupmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermal Noise Decoupling of Micro-Newton Thrust Measured in a Torsion Balance

Cong¹,

Mu²,

Liu³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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The space gravitational wave detection and drag free control requires the micro-thruster to have very low thrust noise within 0.1mHz~100mHz, which poses a great challenge to the ground thrust test. The evaluation and decoupling of thermal noise are the difficulties in the application of torsion balance for most thrusters dissipate heat in the experiment. The research has adopted a calibration scheme of micro-Newton thrust torsion balance. On the basis of Lisa Pathfinder's former research and using ideas inspired from PID control and multi time scale (MTS) for reference, the paper proposes to expand the state space of temperature to be applied on thrust prediction based on fine tree regression (FTR), to subtract the thermal noise filtered by transfer function fitted with z-domain vector fitting (ZDVF). The results show that the thrust amplitude thrust density in diurnal temperature fluctuation is decoupled from 24μN/Hz1/2 to 4.9μN/Hz1/2 at 0.11mHz. And the 1μN square wave modulations of electrostatic fins (ESF) is extracted from the simultaneously ambiguous background of temperature for PTC's heating and cooling. The FTR method is well demonstrated in thermal noise decoupling and can guide the design of thermal control and be extended to other physical quantities for noise decoupling.

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Development of a microthrust balance and ion beam measurement system: Characterizing a dual-mode thruster for spacecraft

Cited by 12 publications

References 31 publications

Bimodal Propulsion System for Small Spacecraft: Design, Fabrication, and Performance Characterization

Bimodal Propulsion System for Small Spacecraft: Design, Fabrication, and Performance Characterization

Comparison of Submillinewton Thrust Measurements Between a Laser Interferometer and a Load Cell on a Pendulum Balance

Thermal Noise Decoupling of Micro-Newton Thrust Measured in a Torsion Balance

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