Proceedings

EPJ D Highlight - Enabling longer space missions

A Hall thruster in operation. Image by the user Dstaak at Wikimedia Commons .

Hall thrusters, which are already used to propel spacecraft and satellites on long missions, could be used for even longer ones if models for minimising surface erosion were taken into account.

The 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing has reignited interest in space travel. However, almost any mission beyond the moon, whether manned or unmanned, will require the spacecraft to remain fully operational for at least several years. The Hall thruster is a propulsion system that is often used by craft involved in long missions. A recent study by Andrey Shashkov and co-workers at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Russia has shown how the operating lives of these systems can be further extended; their work was recently published in EPJ D.

The speed or direction of a spacecraft operating in a vacuum can be changed using an ion drive, which creates thrust by accelerating cations. The Hall thruster is a type of ion drive in which the acceleration is provided by an electric field rather than chemical fuel. It is recommended only for use in space missions longer than 3-5 years; currently, these typically involve satellites. When these thrusters do stop working, it is generally because of surface erosion caused by the propellant; the pattern of surface erosion depends on where, in the Hall thruster channel, ions are formed and then accelerated: the ionisation and acceleration regions (IARs).

Shashkov and his colleagues used computer modelling to investigate how changing the rate of gas flow and the size of the magnetic field affects the location of these regions. They then tested their findings by measuring the parameters on a laboratory-scale Hall thruster unit in a vacuum. Importantly, they found that it was possible to keep the IARs at the same, optimal locations. Stationary IARs are known to prolong the life of Hall thrusters, suggesting that these drives could be used in spacecraft on even longer missions: many times further than the moon.

This was our first experience of publishing with EPJ Web of Conferences. We contacted the publisher in the middle of September, just one month prior to the Conference, but everything went through smoothly. We have had published MNPS Proceedings with different publishers in the past, and would like to tell that the EPJ Web of Conferences team was probably the best, very quick, helpful and interactive. Typically, we were getting responses from EPJ Web of Conferences team within less than an hour and have had help at every production stage.
We are very thankful to Solange Guenot, Web of Conferences Publishing Editor, and Isabelle Houlbert, Web of Conferences Production Editor, for their support. These ladies are top-level professionals, who made a great contribution to the success of this issue. We are fully satisfied with the publication of the Conference Proceedings and are looking forward to further cooperation. The publication was very fast, easy and of high quality. My colleagues and I strongly recommend EPJ Web of Conferences to anyone, who is interested in quick high-quality publication of conference proceedings.

On behalf of the Organizing and Program Committees and Editorial Team of MNPS-2019, Dr. Alexey B. Nadykto, Moscow State Technological University “STANKIN”, Moscow, Russia. EPJ Web of Conferences vol. 224 (2019)

ISSN: 2100-014X (Electronic Edition)

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