This work presents a first version of a novel modeling framework for the design of helicon plasma thrusters, consisting of two hierarchical levels: preliminary and detailed design models. The preliminary design is achieved through a fast global model of the thruster, whose goal is to compute a first-guess of the main operational conditions of the thruster, starting from its geometry and main control parameters. These operational conditions are the required inputs for the detailed design models, consisting of dedicated simulations of both the electrostatic plasma acceleration within the magnetic nozzle and the electromagnetic plasma-wave interaction within the ionization chamber and the near plume. Plasma transport within the nozzle is simulated with an electrostatic particle-in-cell code, which allows to estimate more precisely the achieved thruster performance, confirming the performance predictions of the global thruster model, with a relative error of approx. 10%. Plasma-wave modeling, on the other hand, is achieved with a finite element electromagnetic code, which confirms the technical feasibility of the identified operational RF power with a predefined chamber geometry. The analyses are carried out for a sub-optimal thruster featuring an absorbed plasma power of around 1 kW, a thrust of approx. 17 mN and a specific impulse in the range 1100-1200 s. The built simulation framework will serve as the basis for the next optimization of the thruster geometry and operational conditions, with the ultimate goal of building and testing a new helicon thruster prototype.
Iannarelli et al. (Mon,) studied this question.