Electric Propulsion Activity in Russia

* Presented as Paper IEPC-01at the 27 International Electric Propulsion Conference, Pasadena, CA, 15-19 October, 2001. † Copyright @ 2001 by Vladimir Kim. Published by the Electric Rocket Propulsion Society with Permission An overview of Russian activity in the field of electric propulsions (EP) is presented in the paper. As it is known, the most significant progress was achieved in Russia in the field of the so-called Hall thruster development and application. The first satellite with Hall thruster of SPT type was launched in December, 1971. So, the 30-th anniversary of the SPT appearance in space is celebrated this year. And a lot of research and developmental works in the field of SPT were realized since that event. The main steps of these works are considered in the paper. As a result, over 140 SPTs operated or operate in space for spacecraft orbit correction and, in particular, for the geostationary satellite final positioning and their stationkeeping. Nowadays, the SPT technology becomes the worldwide, namely: some developments of own SPT versions are realized in France and USA, SPT implementation on board Western satellites was started. Developments of new SPTs are naturally continued in Russia. And some of their latest results are represented in the paper, as well as the main results of R&D works on other EP types. This paper was prepared under support of Russian Basic Research Fund (Project No. 00-15-99025).