Ground-Based Experiment of Current Collection to Bare Tether in High-Speed and High-Density Plasma Generated by Hall Thrusters

Bare-tether systems are one of the greatest-efficiency electrodynamic tethered systems. The system with an uninsulated portion of the metallic tether itself to collect electrons from the space plasma is operated as a thruster or a power generator on a satellite. Ground-based experiments were carried out to understand phenomena of electron collection by a bare tether in space. Metallic tether samples were exposed to a simulating Low-Earth-Orbit plasma flow as varying tether sample diameter and length, and plasma velocity. A magnetic field was also applied. The normalized collection current increased with normalized tether sample potential. The tether sample diameter did not influence the normalized collection current characteristics although an increase in tether sample length decreased the normalized collection current in this experiment. The collection current characteristics were independent of plasma velocity under meso-thermal conditions. The existence of magnetic field raised the collection current because of the three-dimensional current collection effect at the edge of a tether sample under the magnetic field. Although the existence of magnetic field may raise the collection current, the effect will be small with a long tether. Accordingly, the dependence of tether diameter and length, plasma velocity and magnetic field on collection current characteristics of a bare tether in space might be small. The collection current may not exceed the OML current.