Design and Experimental Research on Principle Prototype of Iodine Hall Thruster

Xenon gas is a common propellant for electric thrusters. In view of the characteristics of xenon gas with rare natural reserves, high price and difficult purification, solid iodine with similar ionization energy close to xenon is considered a substitute for the ignition experiment of Hall thruster to investigate its basic performance. The experimental results show that iodine vapor can stably enter the discharge channel by controlling the temperatures of supply and propulsion systems, so that the thruster can also operate continuously and stably. The thrust measured by a thrust target is about 8.9 mN under 200 W-class operating condition. Therefore, iodine propellant has a great application prospect in the electric propulsion field, especially for position maintenance and deep space exploration tasks. Further work on the optimization and design of the thruster will be successively carried out.