Abstract: The increasing number of space debris has caused serious damage to the space aircrafts. A method of removing debris at the low-earth orbit is proposed. In this project, the satellite with continuous tangential thrust from the micro electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion thruster raises its orbit height from 700km to 1000km for catching the space debris in the area. Focused on this space mission, the ECR ion thruster system is optimized. Under the condition of one year’s life, the optimization calculation of the electric propulsion system is carried out for the purpose of the lowest total propulsion mass while the operation variables are the thruster voltage and gas flow rate. The calculation results show that with the gas volume flow rate of 0.25sccm (0.0244mg/s) and the grid acceleration voltage of 2488V, the optimized thruster performance is that the specific impulse, thrust and total weight are separately in 2216s, 535μN and 7.288kg.

Key words: Micro-satellite;Space debris;ECR ion thruster;System optimization

摘要： 近年来空间碎片数量急剧增加，已经对空间飞行器造成了严重的威胁。为此提出在碎片密集区域轨道（700km~1000km高度）的碎片处理方案，即利用微小卫星在电子回旋共振（ECR）离子微推进连续切向力作用下，不断进行轨道提升并进行碎片收集。基于此，进一步对电推进系统方案进行优化设计计算，在设计寿命1年的条件下，以推进系统质量最低作为优化目标，以加速电压和工质流量为变量，对电推进系统方案进行优化。最终得到的优化结果为工质流量0.25sccm(0.0244mg/s)、加速电压2488V时，推进系统总体最优，总质量7.288kg,推力器比冲2216s, 推力535μN。

关键词: 微小卫星;空间碎片;ECR离子推力器;系统优化