Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Marrese, C..
The successful demonstration of ion propulsion on NASA's Deep Space 1 mission has stimulated substantial interest in the application of this technology to future solar system exploration missions.
Charge neutralization of an In-FEEP thruster was demonstrated with three different electron sources by zeroing the floating potential of the thruster and neutralizer system. The three cathodes used in the investigation include a mixed metal thermionic cathode, a carbon nanotube field emission cathode, and a Spindt-type Mo field emission array cathode.
Formation flying and microspacecraft constellation missions pose new propulsion requirements. Formationflying spacecraft, due to the tight positioning and pointing control requirements, may need thrust control within 1- 20 uN to an accuracy of 0.1 uN for LISA and ST-7, for example. Future missions may have extended thrust ranges into the sub - mN range. However, all do require high specific impulses (>500 sec) due to long required thruster firings.
A micro-ion thruster assembly with a characteristic diameter of 3-cm has been developed at JPL for testing and optimization of various system parameters.
In this presentation they report design and fabrication details of 1200 GHz nanoklystron circuits and ongoing efforts to produce low voltage cold cathodes from carbon nanotube (CNT) emitters.
Several material combinations were considered as candidates for the electrodynamic tether application in the investigation discussed in this paper. Critical characteristics like work function, resistance, sputter yield and sensitivity to oxidizing environments were considered. The material investigation included, ZrC/Mo, Mo, MgPt, Pt, NbC/Nb, NbNi/Nb, Nb, RuTa/Ta, Ru/Ta and Ta. The results of the measurements suggest that NbC/Nb, NbNi/Nb, and MgPt are the most promising candidates.
Development of MEMS (Microelectromechanical Systems) micropropulsion at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is reviewed. This includes a vaporizing liquid micro-thruster for microspacecraft attitude control, a micro-ion emgine for microspacecraft primary propulsion or large spacecraft fine attitude control, as well as several valve studies, including a solenoid valve studied in collaboration with Moog Space Products Division, and a piezoelectric micro-valve.
This article describes the configuration of the discharge chamber and design and fabrication of the grids and field emission array (FEA) cathodes.
The MEMS Technology Group is part of the Microdevices Laboratory (MDL) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The group pursues the development of a wide range of advanced MEMS technologies that are primarily applicable to NASA's robotic as well as manned exploration missions.
Replacing hollow and filament cathodes with field emitter (FE) cathodes could significantly improve the scalability, power, and performance of some meso- and microscale Electric Propulsion (EP) systems. This article discusses the motivation and challenges of integrating of FE and Electric Propulsion systems.
Replacing hollow and filament cathodes with field emitter (FE) cathodes could significantly improve the scalability, power, and performance of some meso- and microscale Electric Propulsion (EP) systems.
A status of MEMS-based micropropulsion activities conducted at JPL will be given.
Cold field emission cathodes are being considered as the electron sources for propellant ionization and ion beam neutralization in electric propulsion systems.
Recent advances in the development of several micropropulsion components performed at JPL for microscpacecraft applications are reported upon.
Performance and endurance testing of a 1.35 kW thruster with anode layer (TAL), developed at the Central Research Institute of Machine Building (TsNIMASH) is described.