Testing Services
EDA and its employees have significant experience in testing a wide variety of electric propulsion related technologies, including high altitude simulation experiments.
Recently, EDA conducted several chamber tests on different electrodynamic tether configurations (cylindrical and flat-ribbon tape) in order to determine its ability to collect electrons in plasma. The plasma was generated using a Hall thruster operating on xenon gas.
By moving the probe samples relative to the plasma source it was possible to vary the density and therefore the effective width over a range of approximately 1 to 2 Debye lengths for the cylinder sample and 6 to 19 for the tape samples.
Typically, EDA will lease laboratory time from facilities such as the University of Michigan's Plasma and Electric Propulsion Laboratory (PEPL). This enables EDA to plan and initiate the tests while having access to a significant amount of hardware.
One of the vacuum chambers that EDA is able to use is the Large Vacuum Test Facility, which is 9 m long and 6 m in diameter with a pumping speed of 500,000 l/s on nitrogen. Further information about their facilities can be found at their website http://www.engin.umich.edu/dept/aero/spacelab/.
EDA employees have the experience to test Hall thrusters, Ion thrusters, magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD) thrusters, arcjects, hollow cathodes, field emitter arrays, electrodynamic tethers, and many more propulsion, plasma, and space related technologies.
Services Provided By ElectroDynamic Applications, Inc.
Vacuum, Space, and Other High Altitude Testing
Vacuum Chamber Testing ranging from very large, very high pumping speed to very small, very clean UHV chambers
Thermovac Testing - Testing of equipment over a wide range of temperatures.
Design and Testing of Equipment in these conditions from Emitters to Thrusters to Electronics
LabVIEW™ automation of experimentation, data collection, and analysis
Interfacing of test diagnostic equipment such as Langmuir Probes, Retarding Potential Analyzers, Pressure Sensors, and other environmental and performance characterization equipment
Flight pre-qualification and lifetime testing of spacecraft components
Assistance in flight qualification programs
Simulations
Contact us, and we'll be happy to discuss how we can apply our capabilities and expertise to your project.