Auto-Initiating Solid-Propellant Pulsed Plasma Microthruster

*† ‡ Research results have inferred that the electromagnetic pulsed plasma thruster can attain competitive efficiency and specific impulse levels. The pulsed plasma thruster’s unique characteristics can be used to provide propulsive attitude control, orbit raising, translation, and precision positioning. Besides pulsed plasma thrusters are attractive for small satellite applications because they are essentially stand alone devices which eliminate the need for toxic and/or distributed propellant systems. They can also operate at low power and over a wide power range without loss of performance. The present work dealt with designing a better Pulsed Plasma Thruster (PPT) that has lower mass and power requirements and better longevity. Teflon is used as the propellant in this work. An attempt is made to design an auto-initiating pulsed plasma thruster that can be used without an igniter plug. The performance of the auto-initiating pulsed plasma thruster is assessed in the light of the data collected through the experiments conducted on the model and from the experiments conducted elsewhere. The possibility of using the capacitor and the supply voltage for manipulating the discharge frequency is also discussed. The results of the study are important for the application of Pulsed Plasma Thruster in satellite and interplanetary classes of missions where restrictions in terms of mass and power requirements are very critical.