The vacuum arc thruster system, which includes an inductive energy storage power processing unit, has been tested in the past and has shown to have a variety of characteristics making it a suitable thruster for small spacecraft. Amongst those characteristics are low system dry mass of less than 300g, the ability to adjust the individual impulse bit from 50nNs to 30 μN-s by using simple TTL level signals, a thrust-to-power ratio of the order 10μN/W and the ability to run without the need for a DC-DC converter from bus voltages as low as 5VDC. These characteristics have made the vacuum arc thruster the propulsion system of choice for the University of Illinois 2-cube CubeSat (10 x 10 x 20 cm) designed for April 2004 launch. The Illinois Observing NanoSatellite (ION) includes a scientific mission to view the airglow layer of the atmosphere and a CMOS camera for space and Earth photography.