@InProceedings{MarinMarq:2014:PeAnDo,
               author = "Marin, Luis Francisco Chrispim and Marques, Rodrigo Intini",
          affiliation = "{Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE)} and {Instituto 
                         Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE)}",
                title = "Performance analysis of a double discharge pulsed plasma thruster 
                         by varying the energy of its two stages",
                 year = "2014",
         organization = "Latin American IAA CubeSat Workshop, 1.",
             abstract = "A Pulsed Plasma Thruster (PPT) is an electric space propulsion 
                         device mostly used for spacecraft orbit maintenance and attitude 
                         control. One of the most common issues with PPTs is the Late Time 
                         Ablation (LTA) - the sublimation of propellant that occurs after 
                         the main electric discharge, reducing propellant use efficiency. 
                         The Double Discharge PPT (DD-PPT) has two stages: The first stage 
                         works as a regular PPT and the second stage employs additional 
                         electric discharges to accelerate the first dis-charge plasma and 
                         the LTA. This work studied a DD-PPT and analyzed its efficiency 
                         and performance while varying the levels of energy employed on 
                         each of the two stages in order to archive maximum performance. A 
                         new electric circuit was designed to enable energy levels 
                         distribution amongst the two stages of the DD-PPT. An oscilloscope 
                         and a Rogowski current probe were used to estimate the impulse bit 
                         and a precision scale was used for measuring propellant mass 
                         variation. Inductance gradients were calculated using a 
                         mathematical model. Thruster tests were performed in a vacuum 
                         chamber with pres-sure of ~10-6 mbar. The results showed a 
                         significant increase in specific impulse. The optimum 
                         config-uration of energy distribution occurred when a smaller 
                         percentage of the total energy was employed in the primary stage 
                         (for ablation) and a greater percentage of the total energy was 
                         employed in the second stage, used for plasma acceleration.",
  conference-location = "Bras{\'{\i}}lia",
      conference-year = "8-11 dez., 2014",
             language = "en",
           targetfile = "Workshop_Brasilia_artigo_v20_English_FINAL.pdf",
        urlaccessdate = "27 abr. 2024"
}