Development of a New Concept Vacuum Arc Thruster with Multilayer Electrodes

Owing to the high impulse bit of plasma thrusters, they exhibit great advantages in the deep space exploration field. Among them, vacuum arc thrusters are characterized by a smaller volume, a more simple circuit system, and a higher impulse bit if compared with chemical thrusters. In the experiment, the vacuum arc thruster generates a conductive neutral gas by conducting the graphite layer and then generates a plasma source by the thermal breakdown. The preliminary work of the experiment is to simulate the electric field and the trajectory of ions by COMSOL and observe the trajectory of the ions in the thruster with different electric fields and different geometric designs. Next, the geometry of the thruster with multilayer is determined according to the simulation results. Finally, the result is achieved by using a camera and an oscilloscope to obtain the discharge phenomenon of the thruster with multilayer electrodes and the wave of current and voltage to calculate the energy consumption of the system.