Onufrieva

The article presents a description of operation of an electrical nonlinear circuit model including a source (thermo-emission reactor), a plasma current converter (thermo-emission diode) and a resistive load. Amplitude-frequency responses (AFR), phase-frequency characteristics (PFC), phase curves and load current waveforms against the parameters of the thermo-emission diode were studied along with operation stability of the following circuit: thermo-emission reactor – thermo-emission diode - resistive load. The operation of this electrical nonlinear circuit was simulated by using MATLAB - SIMULINK software package; this allowed to obtain accurate solutions for AFR and PFC. Results of circuit operation dynamics were obtained for different current waveforms (sine-wave and meander-wave). Areas of possible unstable operation of the spacecraft propulsion system which depends on reactive resistances of the thermo emission reactor and the plasma current converter were presented.