Beijing Institute of Spacecraft Environment Engineering

Yenan Liu

Chao Zhang

Qi Xiao

Zhong Yi

Lifei Meng

Hua Zhao

Yuming Liu

Zhaoji Yu

Jipeng Sun

Yanlin Xu

Haifu Jiang

Lixiang Jiang

A fuel-free spacecraft propelling system having an open-ended outer cylinder of a propelling device and an atomic oxygen collecting device is disclosed. The latter is arranged at the forwardly-propelled front end of the outer cylinder and is hermetically connected with an RF generating device and an ion cyclotron wave heating device through a magnetic confinement device. A spiral wave discharge oxygen plasma inlet and a spiral wave discharge oxygen plasma outlet in the ion cyclotron wave heating device are respectively provided with another magnetic confinement device. The propulsion of the invention does not need to carry the propellant, which greatly reduces the launch costs, and enables a spacecraft to advantageously have an increased orbit life over existing spacecraft systems.

Fuel-free spacecraft propelling system based on spatial atomic oxygen and propelling method

A chemical-electromagnetic hybrid propeller with variable specific impulse. Fuel gas ejected out from a spraying tube of the chemical propeller through chemical propulsion enters an ionization chamber through a first magnetic mirror tube for ionization. The fuel gas after ionization is heated up by radio-frequency ion cyclotron waves in an ion cyclotron wave heating chamber so as to improve the kinetic energy. Then a second magnetic mirror tube is used, so that ions in the fuel gas after the ionization are heated up many times in a reciprocating manner between the magnetic mirror tubes, and ejected to generate forward propulsion force. By means of the propeller, the propulsion force and the specific impulse are greatly increased.

Chemical-electromagnetic hybrid propeller with variable specific impulse

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Beijing, China

Yenan Liu