New concept of electric propulsion using a liquid metal sputtering

2020 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K18907
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Medium-sized Section 24:Aerospace engineering, marine and maritime engineering, and related fields
• Research Institution: Tohoku University
• Principal Investigator: ANDO Akira 東北大学, 工学研究科, 教授 (90182998)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 高橋 和貴 東北大学, 工学研究科, 准教授 (80451491) ; 小室 淳史 東北大学, 工学研究科, 助教 (70733137)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-06-29 – 2021-03-31
• Keywords: 電気推進 / CubeSat / スパッタリング / 小型衛星

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Principle demonstration of the thrust generation by an efficient emission of the metallic material due to a plasma sputtering phenomenon is successfully performed, where the conventional magnetron sputtering source is used for the experiment. The detected thrust is significantly affected by the target material and the variation well agrees with the sputtering yield, which is the number of the sputtered target atom by an incident ion. Furthermore, the measured ion density downstream of the sputtering source shows that the thrust induced by the charged particles is much less than the actually detected thrust, i.e., is negligible, ensuring the thrust generation by the sputtering phenomenon. For further development of the compact electric propulsion system, the experiment is extended to the plasma production and sputtering by using the liquid metallic propellant of cesium. Further improvement of the propellant seeding is required in near future.

Free Research Field

プラズマ理工学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

小型衛星の開発は，宇宙開発を活発化するとともに，宇宙開発産業を開拓していく重要な技術である．特に，衛星への推進系の搭載は大きな課題であり，精力的な研究開発が進められている．本研究ではスパッタリングによる推力発生という新概念を原理実証したため，宇宙工学の観点での学術的意義が大きいといえる．また小型衛星向けに複数種の推進方式を提供することは社会的な意義が大きく，本研究はその一助となるものである．