Performance and Wear Test Results for a 20 kW-Class Ion Engine with Carbon-Carbon Grids

icy moons of Jupiter. State-of-the-art performance and life assessment tools were used to design the thruster. Preliminary validation of the thruster performance was accomplished with a laboratory model thruster. In parallel, a development model (DM) thruster design was completed and two DM thrusters were fabricated. The first completed performance testing and is currently in an extended wear test. The second successfully completed a vibration test at full Prometheus 1 protoflight levels. The experimental validation of the tools and the thruster design is discussed in this paper.

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