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The Hall thruster plume exerts an attenuation influence on S-band electromagnetic wave and plays an important role in the layout strategy of the thruster and antenna on the satellite. In order to study the law of the signal attenuation, an algorithm of geometric light-path was established to numerically describe the transportation of electromagnetic wave in Hall plume. A rectification test of the algorithm accuracy was conducted, and the signal-noise ratios (SNR) were measured by the method of wave transmission in space. According to the test and calculation results at same operation cases, the maximum relative error was 26.1%, and the average relative error was 7.3%. The calculation results kept qualitatively consistent with the test results. Based on those, the 84 typical operation cases of the SNR attenuation of the S-band electromagnetic wave were computed. The calculation results show that the absorption by plume exerted a more remarkable effect than the reflection on signal attenuation, and that the max attenuation region covered the antenna position of 0.3 - 0.6 m, the direction angle of 15° - 30°, and the attenuation value of SNR between -7 dB and - 4dB. This paper provides a reference base for the layout strategy of the thruster and the antenna on satellites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the influence of the space environment, the organic pollutants applied in the spacecraft have the potential to degrade performance of the sensitive components or devices. In order to control the molecular contamination on-orbit, a method for the zoelite molecular sieve due to its adsorption of organic molecular contamination is proposed in this paper. The absorption capacity of Naβ, NaY and 13X in vacuum is studied with contaminant source from outgassing of cables. It is found that 13X is the best adsorbents compared to Naβ and NaY, and its absorption capacity is 14. 03%. Zeolite-coated cordierite molecular absorbers can be used to collect and retain outgassed molecular effluent emanating from spacecraft materials, thus effectively controlling the contamination of the critical sensitive surfaces to enhance reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]