Simulations of a Hall thruster operating with different gas propellants

Hall thrusters are among the most developed electric propulsion devices, allowing faster and cheaper space exploration than their chemically fueled counterparts. Xenon is commonly used as gas propellant for Hall thrusters because it is relatively easy to ionize and has a high atomic mass, allowing the thruster to achieve high specific impulses [1]. However, xenon is rare and expensive, motivating the exploration of other elemental and molecular propellants. Alternative propellants to Xenon including krypton, argon, and nitrogen have been experimentally pursued [2-4]. In this work, we use a 1-D fluid-kinetic hybrid code [5] to explore the efficiency of ionization of these alternative propellants in a Hall thruster.