Velocity and total pressure measurements in the two-stage hybrid thruster tihtus

Abstract

A novel two-stage thermal-inductive hybrid thruster of the Universität Stuttgart (TIHTUS) is under development at the Institut für Raumfahrt-systeme (IRS). It provides the possibility to supply power and mass-flow through either stage into the plasma. A variation of power- and mass-flow-staging was investigated with a Pitot probe and an electric time-of-flight probe. The present paper discloses the radially resolved measurement results of total pressure and plasma velocity at a downstream position of 200 mm. Furthermore, a method is presented to access radially resolved flow temperature from the combined pressure and velocity measurement. The temperature data are also presented. For a sum of powers of 50 kW at 300 mg/s, the Pitot pressure maximum is at 85 Pa while maximum velocity is measured as 9,224 and 10,350 m/s for two respective conditions. On the plume axis, the temperatures reach up to 9000 K.