Micro Pulsed Plasma Thruster Development

The pulsed plasma thruster (PPT) is a space rated technology that has performed station keeping tasks for a variety of former missions. There has recently been an interest in diversifying the range of propulsion tasks carried out by PPTs. The missions appropriate for the use of PPTs vary from lunar missions where the PPT would provide primary propulsion to on orbit maneuvers for satellites with a mass of much less than 100 kg (e.g. CubeSats). The latter application requires PPTs to be miniaturized and adapted to operate at power levels in the range of 1-3 W. The reduction of the propellant surface area of miniaturized PPTs (µPPTs) and a reduction in the dimensions of the thruster electrodes gives rise to issues associated with geometric scaling laws. Although the issues relating to µPPT scaling have been investigated to a certain degree in the past it is felt that for an application on CubeSats this topic has to be investigated in greater detail for even smaller dimensions. Presently the performance of a µPPT with a propellant area of 1 cm 2 has been analyzed over a discharge energy range of 2 J to 8 J. The present paper discusses the performance evaluation and provides an outlook of upcoming research.