The AETHER project: development of air-breathing electric propulsion for VLEO missions

Andreussi, Tommaso; Ferrato, Eugenio; Paissoni, Christopher Andrea; Kitaeva, Alena; Giannetti, Vittorio; Piragino, Antonio; Schäff, S.; Katsonis, K.; Berenguer, Ch.; Kováčová, Zuzana; Neubauer, Erich; Tisaev, M.; Karadag, Burak; Fabris, Andrea Lucca; Smirnova, M.; Mingo, A.; Quang, D. Le; Alsalihi, Z.; Bariselli, Federico; Parodi, P.; Jorge, P. M.; Magin, Thierry

doi:10.1007/s12567-022-00442-3

Cited by 16 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Additionally, the combination of an oxidising environment and the high temperatures associated with thermionic emission, typically in the 900 • C-1700 • C range for BaO-W and LaB6 hollow cathodes, can lead to significant degradation of components such as the heating element and therefore a reduced cathode lifetime. This is demonstrated in [1], where operation of a LaB6 hollow cathode to xenon containing a 12% fraction of a 0.48O 2 + 0.52N 2 mixture results in significant erosion of the emitter and cathode structure. Hollow cathodes are consequently not viable as a neutralizer for a fully air-breathing propulsion system, in which the cathode operates on a subset of the total intake flow of oxygen and nitrogen species.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…thruster. Previous mission analysis studies have indicated 180-200 km as a feasible VLEO altitude range for an ABEP system [1,2]. The generated thrust is used to compensate atmospheric drag and maintain the desired orbit.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several recent mission analysis studies of the ABEP scenario conclude that high specific impulse (I sp ) is a key desired characteristic of the thruster, with a minimum I sp requirement of at least around 3000 s [1,2,5]. This is driven primarily by the tangential drag of the spacecraft and solar array surfaces, which is significant even if these surfaces are aligned with the VLEO air flow.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The cathode presented in this study is developed as part of the AETHER H2020 project, which aims to design an airbreathing thruster and intake system that is capable of achieving drag-compensation in VLEO and can be tested in a VLEOrepresentative lab environment [1]. This application prescribes several of the cathode target operating parameters based on a dawn-dusk Sun-synchronous orbit at altitudes between 190 and 240 km, such as: an extracted current in the 0.25-3 A range, maximum power of 200 W, inlet air flow of 0.04-0.1 mg s −1 , composition of 0.48O + 0.52N 2 (atomic oxygen replaced with molecular for testing) and inlet air density range of 0.5-5 × 10 18 m −3 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Influence of applied magnetic field in an air-breathing microwave plasma cathode

Tisaev,

Karadag,

Fabris

2023

J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys.

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The air-breathing electric propulsion (ABEP) concept refers to a spacecraft in very-low Earth orbit (VLEO) ingesting upper atmospheric air as propellant for an electric thruster. This compensates atmospheric drag and allows the spacecraft to maintain its orbital altitude, removing the need for on-board propellant storage and allowing an extended mission duration which is not limited by propellant exhaustion. There is a need for development of a robust, high current density and long life cathode (or neutralizer) for air-breathing electrostatic thrusters as conventional thermionic hollow cathodes are susceptible to oxygen poisoning. An Air-breathing Microwave Plasma CAThode (AMPCAT) is proposed to overcome this issue through the use of a microwave plasma discharge, producing an extracted current in the order of 1 A with 0.1 mg/s of air. In this paper, the effect of varying magnetic-field strength and topology is investigated by using an electromagnet coil, which reveals a significantly different behaviour for air compared to xenon. The extracted current with xenon increases by 3.9 times from the zero-field value up to a peak around 150 mT magnetic-field strength at the antenna, whereas an applied field does not increase the extracted current with air at nominal conditions. A non-zero magnetic-field with air is however beneficial for current extraction at reduced neutral densities. A distinct increase in extracted current is identified at low bias voltages with air for a field strength of around 50 mT at the internal microwave antenna, consistent across varying field topologies. The effect of a lowered magnetic-field strength in the orifice region is investigated through the use of a secondary coil, resulting in an extracted current increase of 25 % for a relaxation from 6 mT to 1 mT, and demonstrating the beneficial impact of a locally reduced field strength on electron extraction.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Influence of applied magnetic field in an air-breathing microwave plasma cathode

Tisaev,

Karadag,

Fabris

2023

J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys.

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“…As expected, air breathing Electric Thrusters (ET) using as propellant the Earth atmospheric remnants which are composed mainly by O / N 2 mixtures in varying percentages depending on the altitude, 1,2 were naturally included among the first studies 3 and realization projects. In this domain, the European projects AETHER 4 and DISCOVERER 5 have already obtained significant results.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Support of Solar system study by using ISRU based electric propulsion

Katsonis¹

2022

AAOAJ

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Support of the exploration and study of our Solar system obtained by electric propulsion using available in situ resources for harvesting of the necessary propellants is addressed. This technology should contribute to related R&D development, allowing also for exploitation of the available resources. Specifically, dedicated global models of interest and concomitant diagnostics are shortly described and discussed.

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A review of air-breathing electric propulsion: from mission studies to technology verification

2022

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Air-breathing electric propulsion (ABEP) allows for lowering the altitude of spacecraft operations below 250 km, in the so-called Very Low Earth Orbits (VLEOs). Operations in VLEOs will give radical advantages in terms of orbit accessibility, payload performance, protection from radiations, and end-of-life disposal. ABEP combines an intake to collect the residual atmosphere in front of the spacecraft and an electric thruster to ionize and accelerate the atmospheric particles. Such residual gas can be exploited as a renewable resource not only to keep the spacecraft on a VLEO, but also to remove the main limiting factor of spacecraft lifetime, i.e., the amount of stored propellant. Several realizations of the ABEP concept have been proposed, but the few end-to-end experimental campaigns highlighted the need to improve the concept functional design and the representativeness of simulated atmospheric flows. The difficulty in recreating the VLEO environment in a laboratory limits the data available to validate scaling laws and modelling efforts. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the main research and development efforts on the ABEP technology.

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The AETHER project: development of air-breathing electric propulsion for VLEO missions

Cited by 16 publications

References 20 publications

Influence of applied magnetic field in an air-breathing microwave plasma cathode

Influence of applied magnetic field in an air-breathing microwave plasma cathode

Support of Solar system study by using ISRU based electric propulsion

A review of air-breathing electric propulsion: from mission studies to technology verification

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