国外电喷推进技术发展与趋势

Development and Trends of Foreign Electrospray Propulsion Technology

电喷推进是一种具有高比冲、高效率、快启动、高集成度的微小功率电推进技术,非常适用于微纳卫星轨道转移、位置保持任务以及引力波探测器等较大型航天器的高精度姿态控制、无拖曳控制等任务。电喷推进技术概念形成于1960年。国外电喷推进在经历了曲折的发展历程后,从20世纪90年代开始,在微制造、新材料、离子液体、高性能电源等技术大幅进步的推动下,取得了巨大进展,目前已经达到空间应用水平。美国、瑞士和英国研究电喷推进较为深入,其中又以美国投入最大、创新最显著、成果最丰富。美国麻省理工学院提出并开展了有利于实现高比冲和批产化的iEPS系列电喷推力器芯片研究,近年来主要开展推力密度和可靠性提升的研究工作。Busek公司主要发展大推力和宽调节电喷推进。密苏里科技大学提出并开展了基于含能液体推进剂的、具有化学推进模式和电喷推进模式的化电双模微推进技术研究。密歇根理工大学则提出了基于铁磁流体的流体成型发射体电喷推进技术。通过对国外电喷推进发展历程和最新进展的研究,提出了电喷推进发展趋势,并对我国电喷推进发展提出了建议。

Electrospray propulsion is a kind of micro power electric propulsion with the merits of high specific impulse,high efficiency,fast ignition and high integrity.It is very suitable for the orbit transfer,station keeping missions of micro/nano satellites,and high precision attitude control,drag-free control missions of large spacecraft such as gravitational wave observatories.The concept of electrospray propulsion technology was formed in 1960.After a tortuous development process,driven by significant advances in micromanufacturing,new materials,ionic liquids and high-performance power supplies,the foreign electrospray propulsion technology has made great progress and reached the level of space application since the 1990s.The research of electrospray propulsion technology in United States,Switzerland,and the United Kingdom is more in-depth,and among which the United States has the largest investment,the most significant innovation,the most abundant results.MIT proposed and carried out research on iEPS series electrospray thruster chips,which is conducive to realizing high specific impulse and batch production.In recent years,it has mainly carried out research on thrust density and reliability improvement.Busek Company mainly develops high thrust and wide adjustable electrospray propulsion.Missouri University of Science and Technology proposed and carried out the research of chemical-electric dual-mode micro-propulsion technology with chemical propulsion mode and electrospray propulsion mode based on an energetic liquid propellant.Michigan Technological University proposed a fluid forming emitter based ferrofluid electrospray propulsion technology.Based on the study of the development process and latest progress of electrospray propulsion in foreign countries,this paper puts forward the development trend of electrosprayt propulsion and some suggestions for the domestic electrospray propulsion development.