High Power High Thrust Ion Thruster (HPHTion)
Motivation
- To develop a 25 kW thruster that would support NASA cargo propulsion requirements with power levels extending from 30 kW to 300 kW.
Approach
- The HPHTion would operate as a single high powered engine, thus reducing the system complexity by reducing engine count required to process the power.
- The engine operates at high thrust to power (~50mN/kW) and has the added bonus of a long lifetime.
Results
- EDA completed the thruster prototype during a Phase I effort