Optimizing Experiments for Characterizing Pressure Related Facility Effects on High-Power Hall Thruster Testing

High-power Hall thrusters, an electric propulsion device, are a viable option for deep space flight. Researchers are currently developing methods and designs that scale Hall thrusters from low power ( <9 kW) to high-power (100 kW). To understand how these high-power concepts will perform in space, they must be accurately tested in space-like conditions through ground-based testing. State of the art facilities, however, cannot emulate such conditions because facility related effects such as the presence of background pressure can impact the thruster behavior. The increase in gas output for higher power thrusters makes this particular facility effect even more difficult to account for than modern, lower power thrusters. To compensate for these facility effects, researchers have developed strategies for extrapolating ground based measurements to space. These are based on parametrically varying the facility environment, such as the background gas, and trying to identify trends in how key aspects of thruster behavior change. Models are then fit to this data and projected to space-like conditions. This approach has limitations related to both uncertainty in the parametric data and models. The proposed research aims to overcome these limitations and increase confidence by leveraging the technique of optimal experimental design (OED). The method of OED identifies what data is necessary to better inform the models parameters to fit the data. This work will develop an algorithm for the OED by identifying the optimal locations of the sensors and types of sensors used to measure data, as well as the facility configuration. If successful, this proposed research will help the future of high-power Hall thrusters in deep space missions by providing novel strategies and algorithms that improve models for pressure-related facility effects.

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