Diversity of physical processes: Challenges and opportunities for space electric propulsion

I Levchenko, O Baranov, D Pedrini, C Riccardi… - Applied Sciences, 2022 - mdpi.com
The renewed interest in space exploration has led to the growth in research efforts
pertaining to advanced space propulsion systems, including highly efficient electric …

The 2022 Plasma Roadmap: low temperature plasma science and technology

I Adamovich, S Agarwal, E Ahedo… - Journal of Physics D …, 2022 - iopscience.iop.org
The 2022 Roadmap is the next update in the series of Plasma Roadmaps published by
Journal of Physics D with the intent to identify important outstanding challenges in the field of …

Using electron fluid models to analyze plasma thruster discharges

E Ahedo - Journal of Electric Propulsion, 2023 - Springer
Fluid models of the slow-dynamics of magnetized, weakly-collisional electrons lead to build
computationally-affordable, long-time simulations of plasma discharges in Hall-effect and …

Development of a lumping methodology for the analysis of the excited states in plasma discharges operated with argon, neon, krypton, and xenon

N Souhair, M Magarotto, E Majorana, F Ponti… - Physics of …, 2021 - pubs.aip.org
In this paper, a methodology is presented to compute the plasma properties (eg,, density
and temperature) accounting for the dynamics of the excited states. The proposed strategy …

Analysis of a cusped helicon plasma thruster discharge

P Jiménez, J Zhou, J Navarro-Cavallé… - Plasma Sources …, 2023 - iopscience.iop.org
Experiments and simulations are used to analyze a compact helicon plasma thruster with a
cusp in its internal magnetic field. The former rely on a compensated Langmuir probe and a …

Plasma propulsion modeling with particle-based algorithms

F Taccogna, F Cichocki, D Eremin, G Fubiani… - Journal of Applied …, 2023 - pubs.aip.org
This Perspective paper deals with an overview of particle-in-cell/Monte Carlo collision
models applied to different plasma-propulsion configurations and scenarios, from …

Magnetized fluid electron model within a two-dimensional hybrid simulation code for electrodeless plasma thrusters

J Zhou, A Domínguez-Vázquez… - … Sources Science and …, 2022 - iopscience.iop.org
An axisymmetric fluid model for weakly-collisional, magnetized electrons is introduced and
coupled to a particle-in-cell model for heavy species to simulate electrodeless plasma …

Fluid-kinetic model of a propulsive magnetic nozzle

M Merino, J Nuez, E Ahedo - Plasma Sources Science and …, 2021 - iopscience.iop.org
A kinetic-electron, fluid-ion model is used to study the 2D plasma expansion in an
axisymmetric magnetic nozzle in the fully-magnetized, cold-ion, collisionless limit. Electrons …

Numerical suite for cathodeless plasma thrusters

M Magarotto, S Di Fede, N Souhair, S Andrews, F Ponti - Acta Astronautica, 2022 - Elsevier
This work focuses on a numerical suite targeted at cathodeless plasma thrusters. A Global
Model is used for preliminary estimation of the propulsive performance. In the plasma …

ECRA thruster advances: 30W and 200W prototypes latest performances

V Désangles, D Packan, J Jarrige… - Journal of Electric …, 2023 - Springer
The H2020 MINOTOR project focused on the study and the optimization of the ECRA
thruster, an electric propulsion system for satellites. First, a 30 W prototype of this Electron …