Design of a variable ISP space engine
by Samanvay Karambhe; Xiaofeng Wu; Rishi Verma
International Journal of Space Science and Engineering (IJSPACESE), Vol. 5, No. 1, 2018

Abstract: An existing propulsion system is modified to obtain variable ISP capabilities that could be used to modulate thrust. This created an engine that is able to use low thrust and high ISP setting for interplanetary travel and use high thrust and low ISP setting for attitude control and compensating for atmospheric drag. A cold gas thruster (CGT) was created by using the body of a charge exchange thruster (CXT) effectively producing a dual mode CXT with CGT capabilities. The dual mode CXT was capable of a maximum thrust of 94 µN in electric engine mode. Experimentations showed that using Argon, the dual mode CXT in CGT mode produced a thrust of 4 mN, a 43-fold improvement. A convergent divergent nozzle was designed and validated via ANSYS Fluent for use with the dual mode CXT, it showed a 16-fold improvement in CGT performance at low mass flow rates < 50 sccm.

Online publication date: Tue, 20-Mar-2018

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