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Two arcjet Power Conditioning Units (PCU’s) were recently tested wtih off‐site arcjet thrusters. The arcjet PCU’s used in these in these tests were designed and built by SPI. The design of PCU I.1 was based on our previous work in arcjet power conditioning funded by AFAL. SDIO‐SBIR funded the development of PCU II, modification of PCU I.1 and PCU I.2, as well as the testing of these PCUs. The first of these recent tests was conducted at NASA Lewis Research Center with a hydrogen arcjet. The second one was conducted in Jet Propulsion Laboratory with an ammonia arcjet. The major thrust of the tests was on thruster performance, so the technical objectives and the interests of these tests were not limited to the PCU performance. SPI’s major objectives of these tests were to demonstrate the stable operation of the PCU’s with arcjet thrusters, to prove the capability of initiating the arc breakdown with its built‐in starter, and to demonstrate the endurance of the PCU. The personnel at NASA LeRC and JPL successfully operated the SPI PCUs with their arcjet and obtained valuable test data. |
