Performance and Controllability of Pulsed Ion Beam Ablation Propulsion

We propose novel propulsion driven by ablation plasma pressures produced by the irradiation of pulsed ion beams onto a propellant. The ion beam ablation propulsion demonstrates by a thin foil (50 μmt), and the flyer velocity of 7.7 km/s at the ion beam energy density of 2 kJ/cm2 adopted by using the Time-of-flight method is observed numerically and experimentally. We estimate the performance of the ion beam ablation propulsion as specific impulse of 3600 s and impulse bit density of 1700 Ns/m2 obtained from the demonstration results. In the numerical analysis, a one-dimensional hydrodynamic model with ion beam energy depositions is used. The control of the ion beam kinetic energy is only improvement of the performance but also propellant consumption. The spacecraft driven by the ion beam ablation provides high performance efficiency with short-pulsed ion beam irradiation. The numerical results of the advanced model explained latent heat and real gas equation of state agreed well with experimental ones over a wide range of the incident ion beam energy density