High Power Hall Thrusters Design Options IEPC-2007-311

The development of an analytical scaling model coupled with a statistical database defines the opportunity of a wide and more flexible way of scaling Hall thruster in order to follow different design requirements. This paper is focused on the scaling methodology applied to a high power Hall thruster and it aims to provide different design options for this class of thrusters. In order to obtain a scaling model as effective and rational as possible, a vector of fundamental parameters, defining the thruster geometry and performances, has been created. Three geometric parameters has been chosen: the channel length, the channel width and the channel average diameter. The other two fundamental parameters are the gas number density in the injection plane and the applied discharge voltage. Given a set of basic physical relations which link these five parameters to all the other thruster performance, it is possible to build a scaling matrix. This matrix is a useful tool, which can then be used to obtain a new thruster on the basis of a chosen reference thruster. Here this methodology is used to obtain a preliminary configuration for a new 25 kW HET. Many possible options have been investigated during our analysis, carefully tailoring all the fundamental parameters in order to achieve specific performance goals. Two of the most interesting configurations are highlighted in this paper: a 25 kW HET working at high specific impulse, and a 25 kW HET able to provide a considerable thrust.