This paper presents a large vacuum facility (6-ft-diameter, 10-ft-long chamber) equipped with a magnetic filter-type low Earth orbit plasma source. A recommended operating envelope for the plasma source was established through single-point measurements by varying the discharge currents of the plasma source and the gas flow rates. A three-axis translation stage was fabricated and tested with 2D and 3D scans of the simulated plasma environment. The measured plasma density during this study was between 1.63 × 10 12 3.1 × 10 12    m 3 for the electrons and 7.54 × 10 12 1.82 × 10 13    m 3 for the ions, whereas the electron and ion temperatures ranged from 0.55 to 2.06 eV and 1 to 3 eV, respectively. The simulated plasma environment compares well with orbital equivalents, specifically the F layers of the ionosphere.


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    Title :

    Ground Vacuum Facility to Simulate Low Earth Orbit Plasma Environment


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Publication date :

    2024-09-01




    Type of media :

    Conference paper , Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English