A Novel Electric Thruster Based on IEC Plasma Jet Technology

Conference · Thu Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2004

OSTI ID:21160796

Miley, George H; Momota, H; Stubbers, R ^[1]

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1. Department of Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering, U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 103 S. Goodwin Ave., Urbana, IL 61801 USA (United States)

A novel plasma jet thruster, based on Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (IEC) technology, is described for orbit transfer operations. While electronically driven, it represents a fore summer of a future fusion powered unit. The IEC thruster employs a spherical configuration, wherein ions are generated and accelerated towards the center of a spherical vacuum chamber where a high-density central core region accelerated ions into an intense quasi-neutral ion jet. Compared to other high-power plasma thrusters, the IEC offers advantages in design simplicity and minimum propellant leakage, plus a high power-to-weight ratio. (authors)

• Research Organization: American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
• OSTI ID: 21160796
• Resource Relation: Conference: ICAPP'04: 2004 international congress on advances in nuclear power plants, Pittsburgh, PA (United States), 13-17 Jun 2004; Other Information: Country of input: France; 7 refs; Related Information: In: Proceedings of the 2004 international congress on advances in nuclear power plants - ICAPP'04, 2338 pages.
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
CONFINEMENT
DENSITY
DESIGN
ION THRUSTERS
IONS
PLASMA
PLASMA JETS
SPHERICAL CONFIGURATION