Experimental comparisons of krypton and xenon propellants in ion thrusters show efficiency and resource implications.
The paper presents the results of an experimental study of the integral characteristics of a laboratory model of a radio-frequency ion thruster with a beam diameter of 80 mm operating on krypton. A comparison of the obtained characteristics with the results of tests of the laboratory model using xenon as a propellant is carried out. The computational studies result to assess the impact of the transition to krypton on the accelerating grid resource of the thruster ion-extraction system and the efficiency of ion beam focusing are presented. The results of modeling the erosion process of the accelerating grid surface under the influence of the corresponding ions falling on the grid during operation are presented for xenon and krypton, taking into account the operating modes of the radio-frequency ion thruster laboratory model considered during the experiments. A number of studies have made it possible to evaluate the change in the integral characteristics of a radio-frequency ion thruster in the event of a transition to using a cheaper propellant compared to xenon. The obtained results can be used to optimize existing radio-frequency ion thruster models for krypton in order to achieve the highest operating efficiency.
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Kozhevnikov et al. (2025) studied this question.
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