Space Environment

IDEFIXe
Facility devoted to the Study of Erosion by Electric Propulsion and induced Contamination

Objectives

• Study of the interaction of the plume of an electric thruster with satellite‘s surfaces
• Study of the contamination due to this erosion on satellite skin

Facilities

• Bombardment of surfaces with Xe⁺ ions beam (or other gas)
• Measurement of erosion yield of different materials as a function of the energy (from 50 to 1200 eV) and of the incidence (from 5° to 75°)
• Ionic flow created by a ion source (using Xenon or other gas)
• Neutralisation of the beam performed with an electron-emitting filament
• Current emitted by the source about few tens of mA
• Study of species produced by atomic oxygen impact on materials using mass spectrometry
• Baseline pressure < 10^-6 Torr (1 10^-4 with plasma)
• Contamination of samples by the erosion of a target
• Control of the contamination level in real-time by quartz microbalances (QCM)
• Contaminated samples and microbalances maintained in temperature (from -20°C to +50°C)

Funding

• Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES)
• Centre National d'Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales (ONERA)

Last Update:April 25, 2003 - © ONERA 2009 - Terms of use