Development and Testing of a Miniature Helicon Plasma Thruster

a joint effort between the Center for Space Studies and Activities “CISAS – G. Colombo” of the University of Padua, Italy, and T4i, an Italian SME active in the field of space propulsion, is aimed at the development of a miniature plasma propulsion module, suitable for integration in small platforms down to Nanosatellite scale and versatile enough to cover different applications, such as Nano/Micro/Mini/Small satellites orbit maintenance (drag compensation), station keeping, orbital parameter changes and deorbiting. The module is centered around a a Mini Helicon Thruster (MHT) currently being developed by T4i and CISAS as a development of the technology developed at CISAS in the past years 1, 5 ; the MHT is capable of operation in a wide thrust level range and of covering different needs in a same mission thanks to its high total impulse. In the paper we report i) the results thus far achieved during the test campaign performed on the MHT, ii) the overall design of the related MHT propulsion module, iii) some examples of mission profiles made possible by the module.