Stationary plasma thrusters are attractive electric propulsion systems for spacecrafts. The usual propellant is xenon. Among the\r\nother suggested propellants, krypton could be one of the best candidates. Most studies have been carried out with a Hall effect\r\nthruster previously designed for xenon.TheATONA-3 developed byMSTUMIREA (Moscow) initially defined for xenon has been\r\noptimized for krypton.The stable high-performanceATONA-3 operation inKr has been achieved after optimization of its magnetic\r\nfield configuration and its optimization in different parameters: length and width of the channel, buffer volume dimensions, mode\r\nof the cathode operation, and input parameters. For a voltage of 400V and the anode mass flow rate of 2.5mg/s the anode efficiency\r\nreaches 60% and the specific impulse reaches 2900 s under A-3 operating with Kr.The achieved performances under operation A-3\r\nwith Kr are presented and compared with performances obtained with Xe.
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