About the calculation of the discharge characteristics оf the high voltage thermion diode in the regime of the reverse current
The performance of the system of current converter for the spacecraft unit such as high voltage plasma thermionic diodes and grid-controlled rectifiers depends on the value of backward arc-through voltage, which define electric power and operating voltage. The electric power and the operating voltage specify type of the rocket engine, which define ballistics of flight and mass efficiency of transport problem. Therefore, efficiency of the spacecraft unit depends considerably on the electrical parameters of the system of current converter. Unlike previous models and approaches on dense glow discharge in the interelectrode gap, in this study for the first time the analytical solution of the self-congruent equation system for the potential distribution, electric field distribution and the distribution of atom temperature in the ion layer of the negative electrode was obtained. The results revealed that the main reason of maintaining of the high-voltage low-current regime in the interelectrode gap (which is the dense glow discharge) was the energy balance in the area of exited atoms near the surface of the negative electrode.