Experimental study of the effects of the cathode position and the electrical circuit configuration on the operation of HK40 hall thruster and bustlab hollow cathode

Abstract

HK40 Hall thruster, designed and developed at the Bogazici University Space Tech- nologies Laboratory (BUSTLab), is an SPT type Hall thruster with a 40 mm discharge channel. HK40 was initially designed to operate with SmCo permanent magnets. To op- timize the magnetic field topology, the permanent magnets were replaced with iron-core electromagnets. The thruster is operated with different magnetic coil currents to observe the changes in discharge characteristics. Magnetic field topology of the thruster is exam- ined to determine the proper location of a LaB6 hollow cathode, which is also designed and built at BUSTLab. External magnetic field topology of a Hall thruster has an important characteristic called magnetic field separatrix defining the boundary between closed mag- netic surfaces and open magnetic field lines. To investigate the effects of the separatrix surfaces, the location of the cathode is changed in-situ with respect to the Hall thruster with a 2-D translational stage in two different grounding configurations, one connecting the vacuum chamber to the same ground with the power supplies, and the other with the power supplies connected to a common floating ground. We show that the infiuence of the external magnetic field strength on the thruster efficiency can be predicted from the electron current coming from the cathode emitter surface. We also show that the cathode to ground voltage provides a way to estimate the efficiency with respect to the cathode placement. The mechanisms and the efficiency values of two setups are compared to explain the ground and the space operations. © 2016, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Inc, AIAA. All rights reserved.