Experimental Study of Air Breathing Ion Engine Using Laser Detonation Beam Source

Design and analysis of vacuum air-intake device used in air-breathing electric propulsion

“…According to the experimental results of Tagawa et al, most of the incoming oxygen atoms maybe combine into oxygen molecules in the air breathing electric thruster [4]. In this simulation, we assume that all atoms (N and O) quickly combine into molecules (N 2 and O 2 ).…”

“…Furthermore, the remainder gas after drag compensation could be stored, and then the development of the space refueling depot is possible [5,6]. In the past decade, the air-breathing electric propulsion was M A N U S C R I P T A C C E P T E D ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 2 widely reported [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. To get a usable air-breathing electric thruster, firstly, an efficient space gas collection device must be developed.…”

“…The super-low orbit satellites can be used for high resolution earth surveillance, accurate gravity/magnetic field mapping, and global ocean climate explorer [1][2][3][4]. However, they will confront significant atmospheric drag if the altitude is below 300 km.…”

“…In this study, a vacuum air-intake device is reported; it is composed of a multi-hole plate (or collimator, composed of many small tubes), a turbo with a large inlet, a small turbomolecular pump and a miniature scroll vacuum pump in series. Given it is hard to get the molecular flow gas with a velocity of 7.8 km/s in a lab [2,4], in the study, the Monte Carlo method is chosen to investigate the performances of the multi-hole plate and the turbo at the altitudes of 150-240 km; and an experiment is implemented to analysis the compression performances and the needed powers of the small turbomolecular pump and the miniature scroll pump.…”

Atomic-Oxygen-Flow Generation by Laser-Driven Plasma Wind Tunnel as Low-Earth-Orbit-Environment Simulator

“…This problem severely limits the mission term. Therefore, recently, air-breathing hall thrusters or ion engines have been proposed to extend the mission term [6][7][8].…”