Simulation of Parallel-Plate Pulsed Plasma Teflon® Thruster Based on the Electromechanical Model

Electric propulsion devices have been used widely in space flight mission for its superior performance. As a kind of electromagnetic thruster, the parallel-plate pulsed plasma thruster (PPT) as well as its operation process is theoretically analyzed and discussed. Based on the electromechanical model of PPT-an idealized, quasi-steady, analytic model including the ablated mass process of Teflon, an interactive intelligent computer-aided software which is used to predict the influences of variations of several electric parameters (capacitor capacitance, initial voltage, circuit resistance and electron temperature) and configuration parameters (electrodes distance, electrode width) on PPT performance is designed and implemented in MATLAB environment. And an application example of Lincoln Experimental Satellite VI (LES-6) PPT shows that this software has characteristics of easy operation, friendly human-computer interaction interface, high display speed and precision for PPT preliminary design. Finally, certain deficiencies in the presented model are identified and addressed with considerations for future improvement.