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Aerojet General Corporation, Redmond has significantly increased its activity in the development of manufacturable ion propulsion systems in the past 2 years. Aerojet successfully fabricated and demonstrated a 30 cm ion thruster in 1994; completed a system design for a low mass 500 W-class ion system in 2000; and provided ion thruster firing and vibration testing support to two IMWG carbon-carbon grid programs from 2001 to present. Now, Aerojet is supporting three major high power ion system development programs with NEXT, NEXIS and HiPEP. Under NASA's Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) program with NASA-GRC, Aerojet has designed, built, tested and delivered a breadboard Propellant Management System (PMS) and digital control system, as well as assisted in the assembly of a 40-cm Engineering Model thruster at GRC. In the upcoming Phase 2 NEXT program, Aerojet will design, fabricate and deliver two Prototype Model 40-cm thrusters; and design, fabricate, test and deliver an Engineering Model single string and three-string PMS. On the Nuclear Electric Xenon Ion System (NEXIS) program with JPL, Aerojet is currently designing a flightweight Development Model (DM) 65-cm thruster, and will fabricate, test and deliver three DM thrusters in 2004 and 2005. Finally, on the High Power Electric Propulsion (HiPEP) program with NASA-GRC, Aerojet has completed the preliminary design of a novel high-voltage feed system and will begin design and fabrication support of the thruster in the upcoming Phase 2 program. This paper provides an overview of Aerojet activity in all of these ion system areas. |
