A pendulum type balance has been designed and fabricated to characterize solid propellant microthrusters. The thrust measurement system mainly consists of a rigid arm rotating freely around a pivot and a feedback control loop. The deflection of the arm produced by the applied thrust is detected using a high frequency transmitter and an antenna. The principle of the measurement is to compensate exactly the thrust force applied to the pendulum by injecting a current in a coil. The measurement of this current gives a perfect image of the thrust force. This article presents the design and performances of the balance. The thrust force measurement sensitivity is 25 μN and the system bandwidth is 40 Hz. Using this balance, single cylindrical thrusters have been characterized. The results gave less than a 1% error between experiment and theoretical evaluation.
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
July 2002
Research Article|
July 01 2002
Thrust stand for ground tests of solid propellant microthrusters
S. Orieux;
S. Orieux
LAAS-CNRS, 7 Ave du Colonel Roche, 31077 Toulouse Cedex 4, France
CNES, 18 Ave Edouard Belin, 31501 Toulouse Cedex 4, France
Search for other works by this author on:
C. Rossi;
C. Rossi
LAAS-CNRS, 7 Ave du Colonel Roche, 31077 Toulouse Cedex 4, France
Search for other works by this author on:
D. Estève
D. Estève
LAAS-CNRS, 7 Ave du Colonel Roche, 31077 Toulouse Cedex 4, France
Search for other works by this author on:
Rev. Sci. Instrum. 73, 2694–2698 (2002)
Article history
Received:
February 26 2002
Accepted:
April 08 2002
Citation
S. Orieux, C. Rossi, D. Estève; Thrust stand for ground tests of solid propellant microthrusters. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 1 July 2002; 73 (7): 2694–2698. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1483901
Download citation file:
Pay-Per-View Access
$40.00
Sign In
You could not be signed in. Please check your credentials and make sure you have an active account and try again.
Citing articles via
Overview of the early campaign diagnostics for the SPARC tokamak (invited)
M. L. Reinke, I. Abramovic, et al.
An instrumentation guide to measuring thermal conductivity using frequency domain thermoreflectance (FDTR)
Dylan J. Kirsch, Joshua Martin, et al.
A glovebox-integrated confocal microscope for quantum sensing in inert atmosphere
Kseniia Volkova, Abhijeet M. Kumar, et al.
Related Content
Gas dynamic calibration of a nano-Newton thrust stand
Rev. Sci. Instrum. (October 2002)
A torsional balance for the characterization of microNewton thrusters
Rev. Sci. Instrum. (October 2003)
GEO 600 triple pendulum suspension system: Seismic isolation and control
Rev. Sci. Instrum. (June 2000)