Analysis of Air Breathing Hall-Effect Thruster (Preprint)

Abstract

The principle idea of using air breathing electrical propulsion for a vehicle flying at orbital speed on the edge of Earth's atmosphere is examined. In this paper, we present a simple model of a Hall Effect thruster in which the propellant is an ambient air. The required lengths of the thruster chamber, the magnetic fields, the thrust, and other parameters of an ideal air breathing Hall Effect thruster are calculated as a function of the flying altitude of the vehicle. We demonstrated that an air breathing Hall thruster is indeed capable of providing the needed thrust for near space satellites in the case of the altitudes of about 80-90 km.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 01, 2011
Accession Number
ADA549856

Entities

People

  • Leonid Pekker
  • Michael Keidar

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Air Breathing
  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Altitude
  • Artificial Satellites
  • Department Of Defense
  • Electric Propulsion
  • Electron Emission
  • Electrons
  • Hall Effect
  • Hall Thrusters
  • Magnetic Fields
  • Materials
  • Satellite Orbits
  • Spacecraft
  • Thrust
  • Thrusters

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Aerospace Propulsion Engineering.
  • Aerospace logistics and air mobility.
  • Atmospheric Science / Meteorology, specifically Wind Wave Turbulence.

Technology Areas

  • Space
  • Space - Hall-Effect Thruster
  • Space - Satellites