A novel medium-energy ion emitter for active spacecraft potential control

Details A novel medium-energy ion emitter for active spacecraft potential control A novel medium-energy ion emitter for active spacecraft potential control

Aug 1993

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1993rsci...64.2293s&link_type=abstract

Review of Scientific Instruments (ISSN 0034-6748), vol. 64, no. 8, p. 2293-2297.

Physics

12

Active Control, Electrostatics, Ion Emission, Plasmasphere, Spacecraft Charging, Spacecraft Control, Electronic Equipment, Liquid Metals

Scientific paper

An ion emission instrument has been developed to actively control the electrostatic surface potential of a spacecraft in orbit. Spacecraft surfaces tend to charge positive when their conductive surfaces are partially sunlit, and photoelectrons emitted, and the spacecraft is positioned outside the very dense plasma region which is referred to as the plasmasphere. A small, lightweight instrument with a lifetime of more than 10,000 h at a nominal emission current of 10 micro-A was the design goal. The ion emitter is based on the liquid metal ion source principle; a constant stream of liquified indium is evaporated from the tip of a needle and ionized; the ions are then extracted by a strong electric field. The size of the instrument is about 18 by 15 by 23 cm (length x width x height) and the entire instrument weighs about 1.9 kg and consumes 2.4 W of electrical power in the nominal emission mode. An instrument of this type is already operational on the Japanese Geotail spacecraft, while five more instruments are at the stage of flight model assembly for integration on the Russian Interball satellite and the ESA/NASA four-spacecraft Cluster Mission. The Geotail instrument is functioning as expected. Preliminary results show that the ion emitter is able to reduce surface potentials of +70 V (highest value observed up to now) down to 2-4 V.

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