Performance Evaluation of an Iodine-Vapor Hall Thruster

The performance of a nominal 200 W Hall effect thruster fueled by iodine vapor was evaluated. The system included a laboratory propellant feed system, a flight-model Hall thruster, and breadboard power processing unit. Operation of the Hall thruster with iodine vapor was stable on both short and long time scales, enabling measurements of thruster performance across a broad range of operation conditions. Performance was found to be comparable with xenon. At 200 W, thrust is 13 mN, anode specific impulse is 1500 s, and anode efficiency is 48%. Plume-current measurements indicate a profile typical of xenon Hall thrusters, while E B probe measurements indicate the presence of ionic dimers.