So I'm planning an add-on for a large interplanetary spacecraft inspired by some of the soviet concepts for nuclear-electric mars spacecraft, but with sort of a more near-future rather than historical bent.
In keeping with the vein of the source material, I have decided to use xenon hall thrusters. However unlike the source materials, I'm planning on using four very large thrusters (meters across) rather than having a few grids of dozens of small hall thrusters.
NASA has had much success with high-thrust, high power Hall thrusters in the past decade, establishing a power-thrust relation of approximately 1 N of thrust for every 20 kilowatts of electric power at a specific impulse of around 3000 seconds. Recent advances have also given engineers good models of how these thrusters wear down which has improved service lifetimes dramatically from early soviet SPT thrusters.
No real engineering papers I can find have give me a bearing on how making such thrusters very large would effect thrust and impulse and specific mass and propellant throughput and other important parameters. There's never been a project warranting them.
I'm thinking a thruster that takes about 10 megawatts of power and is 2 or 3 meters across. Anyone know where I might look for guidance on this?
In keeping with the vein of the source material, I have decided to use xenon hall thrusters. However unlike the source materials, I'm planning on using four very large thrusters (meters across) rather than having a few grids of dozens of small hall thrusters.
NASA has had much success with high-thrust, high power Hall thrusters in the past decade, establishing a power-thrust relation of approximately 1 N of thrust for every 20 kilowatts of electric power at a specific impulse of around 3000 seconds. Recent advances have also given engineers good models of how these thrusters wear down which has improved service lifetimes dramatically from early soviet SPT thrusters.
No real engineering papers I can find have give me a bearing on how making such thrusters very large would effect thrust and impulse and specific mass and propellant throughput and other important parameters. There's never been a project warranting them.
I'm thinking a thruster that takes about 10 megawatts of power and is 2 or 3 meters across. Anyone know where I might look for guidance on this?
