A test facility is being prepared for a 16,000 hour mission profile life test of multiple electric propulsion thrust subsystems. The facility will be capable of simultaneously operating three 2.7 kW, 30 cm mercury ion thrusters and their power processing. The facility will permit conduction of a program of long-term tests to document thruster characteristics as a function of time and operating point to allow prediction of thruster performance for any mission profile. The thruster will be tested in a 7m by 10m vacuum chamber. Each thruster will be installed in a separate lock chamber so that it can be extended into, or extracted from the main chamber without violating the vacuum integrity of the other thruster. The thrusters will exhaust into a 3m by 5m frozen mercury target. The target and an array of cryopanels to collect sputtered target material will be liquid nitrogen chilled. Power processor units will be tested in an adjacent 1.5m by 2m vacuum chamber and will be temperature controlled by simulated heat pipes.


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    Title :

    A mission profile life test facility


    Contributors:
    James, E. (author) / Vetrone, R. (author) / Bechtel, R. (author)

    Conference:

    International Electric Propulsion Conference ; 1978 ; San Diego, CA, US


    Publication date :

    1978-04-01


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English




    A mission profile life test facility

    JAMES, E. / VETRONE, R. / BECHTEL, R. | AIAA | 1978


    Results of the mission profile life test

    BECHTEL, R. / TRUMP, G. / JAMES, E. | AIAA | 1982


    Results of the mission profile life test

    Bechtel, R. T. / Trump, G. E. / James, E. L. | NTRS | 1982


    The National Test Facility Mission

    Worrell, R. H. / AIAA | British Library Conference Proceedings | 1994