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<p>The poor discharge performance of atmospheric gas propellants is a primary limiting factor for the practical application of air-breathing electric propulsion (ABEP), which is believed to be a promising solution to the long-term orbital maintenance for ultra-low Earth orbit (ULEO) satellites. This study employs a recently developed fast converging PIC-MCC-DSMC model, which solves the plasma and neutral dynamics alternatingly in a synergistic manner, to self-consistently simulate the discharge processes of molecular nitrogen (N<sub>2</sub>) and oxygen (O<sub>2</sub>) propellants in a micro direct current (DC) ion thruster. Both N<sub>2</sub> and O<sub>2</sub> exhibit significantly lower plasma densities compared to conventional noble gas propellants, primarily due to the stronger wall losses in N<sub>2</sub> and O<sub>2</sub> discharges. Two key distinctions characterize molecular propellants in contrast to noble gases: first, they remain in the propellant-rich regime across all investigated voltages, leading to a monotonic increase in ion beam current and mass utilization efficiency with voltage; second, molecular propellants show a decrease in mass utilization efficiency with increasing flow rate. Between N<sub>2</sub> and O<sub>2</sub>, the discharge performance is distinct due to their different dissociation degrees: N<sub>2</sub> achieves higher mass utilization efficiency, while O<sub>2</sub> generates larger beam current and thrust.</p>

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Investigation of discharge performance for N2/O2 propellant in a micro DC ion thruster using a fast converging PIC-MCC-DSMC model

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年1月23日

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  • Tianyu Zhang,
  • Zilin Huang,
  • Yuan Hu,
  • Chao Yang,
  • Jinyue Geng,
  • Quanhua Sun,
  • Heji Huang

摘要

The poor discharge performance of atmospheric gas propellants is a primary limiting factor for the practical application of air-breathing electric propulsion (ABEP), which is believed to be a promising solution to the long-term orbital maintenance for ultra-low Earth orbit (ULEO) satellites. This study employs a recently developed fast converging PIC-MCC-DSMC model, which solves the plasma and neutral dynamics alternatingly in a synergistic manner, to self-consistently simulate the discharge processes of molecular nitrogen (N2) and oxygen (O2) propellants in a micro direct current (DC) ion thruster. Both N2 and O2 exhibit significantly lower plasma densities compared to conventional noble gas propellants, primarily due to the stronger wall losses in N2 and O2 discharges. Two key distinctions characterize molecular propellants in contrast to noble gases: first, they remain in the propellant-rich regime across all investigated voltages, leading to a monotonic increase in ion beam current and mass utilization efficiency with voltage; second, molecular propellants show a decrease in mass utilization efficiency with increasing flow rate. Between N2 and O2, the discharge performance is distinct due to their different dissociation degrees: N2 achieves higher mass utilization efficiency, while O2 generates larger beam current and thrust.