One of the promising areas of application of plasma accelerators is the development of powerful electric-jet plasma thruster on their basis. The study of spatiotemporal characteristics of the discharge and plasma flow generated by the QSPA will allow optimizing the geometry and operating modes of the QSPA in order to ensure stable operation and reduce the role of dissipative processes.
The report presents the results of studies of spatiotemporal dependencies of the characteristics of the hydrogen plasma flow in the QSPA. The spatial and temporal structure of discharge radiation in the interelectrode gap has been investigated. It is shown that at the output of the electrode system of the accelerator there is a region ofbright plasma radiation, characterized by the presence of impurities of the materials of the electrode system and increased values of the electron density. The temporal dynamics of the plasma flow concentration is measured for the first time simultaneously using two independent optical diagnostics.