Experimental Investigation of a Hall Thruster Using Oxygen as the Propellant

Thrust performance and internal efficiencies of a Hall thruster using oxygen as the propellant were investigated experimentally. The thrust efficiency reached at 9% with the specific impulse of 1,000s. The relatively poor performance is due to low propellant utilization, which is 45%, in comparison with that in the case of xenon propellant. The propellant utilization increased with mass flow rate and discharge voltage. The optimum channel length for oxygen was found longer than that for xenon, which was 12mm. The use of BN・AlN for the channel wall results in higher propellant utilization than that of BN for channel wall.