Yang Yuan-Xia, Tu Liang-Cheng, Yang Shan-Qing, Luo Jun
School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China.
Rev Sci Instrum. 2012 Jan;83(1):015105. doi: 10.1063/1.3675576.
This paper reports the performance of a torsion-type thrust stand suitable for studies of micro-Newton thrusters, which is developed for ground testing the micro-Newton thruster in Chinese Test of the Equivalence Principle with Optical readout space mission. By virtue of specially suspending design and precise assembly of torsion balance configuration, the thrust stand with load capacity up to several kilograms is able to measure the impulse bit up to 1350 μNs with a resolution of 0.47 μNs, and the average thrust up to 264 μN with a resolution of 0.09 μN in both open and close loop operation. A pulsed plasma thruster, the preliminary prototype developed for Chinese TEPO space mission, is tested by the thrust stand, and the results reveal that the average impulse bit per pulse is measured to be 58.4 μNs with a repeatability of about 5%.
本文报道了一种适用于微牛顿推力器研究的扭转型推力台的性能，该推力台是为中国“等效原理空间光学测量”任务中的微牛顿推力器地面测试而研制的。借助扭秤结构的特殊悬挂设计和精确装配，该推力台承载能力高达数千克，在开环和闭环操作中，能够测量高达1350微牛顿秒的冲量比特，分辨率为0.47微牛顿秒，平均推力高达264微牛顿，分辨率为0.09微牛顿。一种为中国“等效原理空间光学测量”任务研制的脉冲等离子体推力器的初步原型，通过该推力台进行了测试，结果表明，每个脉冲的平均冲量比特测量值为58.4微牛顿秒，重复性约为5%。
