Flexible piloted Mars missions using the TIHTUS engine

Böhrk, Hannah; Schmidt, Tanja D.; Auweter‐Kurtz, Monika

doi:10.1016/j.ast.2006.10.002

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 16 publications

(14 reference statements)

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“…The development of propulsion systems with large thrust and high-level specific impulse is of great significance for the implementation of human Lunar and Mars missions. [1][2][3] Specifically, large thrust can reduce the spacecraft transfer time to protect the crew from continuous exposure to cosmic radiation and psychological issues, and high specific impulse will help to increase the payload mass ratio that allows the spacecraft to carry more detection devices and living supplies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and performance evaluation of a novel H₂/O₂ electro-chemical hybrid thruster

Wang

Zhao

Huang

et al. 2023

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part G:

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A H2/O2 electro-chemical hybrid thruster with a novel design for efficient coupling of hydrogen–oxygen detonation combustion and plasma acceleration is constructed and tested. The comprehensive effects of various parameters, such as the delay time, the background pressure, the capacitance, the external magnetic field, and the propellant mass flow rate, on the performance of the thruster have been explored in single-pulse mode. Several strategies for enhancing the efficiency have been proposed. It is found that, by adding an external magnetic field and decreasing the storage capacitor under the low pressure of 30 Pa and higher single-pulse gas intake at appropriate delay time, the average thrust and efficiency can be enhanced up to 73.2 mN and 15.58%, respectively. In addition, the maximal specific impulse of 676 s is also achieved. The results strongly indicate the great potential of the proposed electro-chemical hybrid thruster in achieving large thrust and high-level specific impulse.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and performance evaluation of a novel H₂/O₂ electro-chemical hybrid thruster

Wang

Zhao

Huang

et al. 2023

Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part G:

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“…The technology is flexible, scalable, and has significant potential for the transfer of satellites from low Earth orbit to geostationary orbit (LEO-GEO) and space station repositioning, maneuvering, and reducing drag. High-power arcjet thrusters (100 kW) have received attention for high-power and high thrust missions like Mars mission scenarios [8]. Besides space application, very high-power arcjets (1 MW) generate high enthalpy hypersonic non-equilibrium plasma flow in plasma wind tunnels [9][10][11] to study the thermal and mechanical loads on materials during atmospheric re-entry.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A three-dimensional numerical study on the effect of geometric asymmetry on arcjet thruster performance

Nandyala

Kumar

Jayachandran

2023

Plasma Sci. Technol.

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In an arcjet thruster, the cathode and constrictor degrade with time, and the electrical arc discharge may become unsymmetrical. In this work, a three-dimensional numerical model of hydrogen plasma arcjet is developed and validated to study the effect of unsymmetrical electric arc discharge on thruster performance. The unsymmetrical arc discharge is realized by introducing a radial shift of the cathode so that the cathode tip offset is 80 μm (25 % of the constrictor radius). Simulations are conducted for both axially centered cathode (coaxial) and off-centered cathode (non-coaxial) configurations with identical propellant flow rates and input current. Simulations show asymmetrical arc discharge in non-coaxial cathode configuration, resulting in azimuthally asymmetric Joule heating, species concentrations, and velocity field. This asymmetry continues as the plasma expands in the divergent section of the nozzle. Temperature, species concentrations, and axial velocity exhibit asymmetric radial distribution at the nozzle exit. The computed Joule heating was found to reduce with cathode shift, and consequently, the thrust and specific impulse of the thruster was decreased by about 6.6 %. In the case of the non-coaxial cathode, geometric asymmetry also induces a small side thrust.

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“…This new concept has the potential of producing large thrust and high e¨ective exhaust velocity by addition of power in the second stage [3,4]. It is therefore considered the predecessor of a future T 50|00 300|0 50 0 300 0 T 25|25 300|0 25 25 300 0 T 20|30 300|0 20 30 300 0 T 25|25 200|100 25 25 200 100 T 25|25 100|200 25 25 100 200 propulsion system for the transport of heavy payload on interplanetary trajectories [5,6]. TIHTUS consists of an arcjet thruster (¦rst stage) and an inductively heating afterburner (second stage).…”

Section: Figure 1 Principle Of Tihtusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Velocity and total pressure measurements in the two-stage hybrid thruster tihtus

Böhrk¹,

Auweter‐Kurtz²

2009

Progress in Propulsion Physics

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A novel two-stage thermal-inductive hybrid thruster of the Universitat Stuttgart (TIHTUS) is under development at the Institut fur Raumfahrtsysteme (IRS). It provides the possibility to supply power and mass- §ow through either stage into the plasma. A variation of power-and mass§ow-staging was investigated with a Pitot probe and an electric timeof- §ight probe. The present paper discloses the radially resolved measurement results of total pressure and plasma velocity at a downstream position of 200 mm. Furthermore, a method is presented to access radially resolved §ow temperature from the combined pressure and velocity measurement. The temperature data are also presented. For a sum of powers of 50 kW at 300 mg/s, the Pitot pressure maximum is at 85 Pa while maximum velocity is measured as 9,224 and 10,350 m/s for two respective conditions. On the plume axis, the temperatures reach up to 9000 K.

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Flexible piloted Mars missions using the TIHTUS engine

Cited by 7 publications

References 16 publications

Design and performance evaluation of a novel H₂/O₂ electro-chemical hybrid thruster

Design and performance evaluation of a novel H₂/O₂ electro-chemical hybrid thruster

A three-dimensional numerical study on the effect of geometric asymmetry on arcjet thruster performance

Velocity and total pressure measurements in the two-stage hybrid thruster tihtus

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Flexible piloted Mars missions using the TIHTUS engine

Cited by 7 publications

References 16 publications

Design and performance evaluation of a novel H2/O2 electro-chemical hybrid thruster

Design and performance evaluation of a novel H2/O2 electro-chemical hybrid thruster

A three-dimensional numerical study on the effect of geometric asymmetry on arcjet thruster performance

Velocity and total pressure measurements in the two-stage hybrid thruster tihtus

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Design and performance evaluation of a novel H₂/O₂ electro-chemical hybrid thruster

Design and performance evaluation of a novel H₂/O₂ electro-chemical hybrid thruster