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Plasma Physics in Space Electric Propulsion

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Applied Physics General".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 May 2020) | Viewed by 10979

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Physics "G. Occhialini", University of Milano-Bicocca, 20126 Milan, Italy
Interests: plasma medicine; nuclear fusion; low temperature plasmas; plasma physics; plasma technology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
Consorzio RFX, 35127 Padova, Italy
Interests: plasma physics; nuclear fusion; low temperature plasmas; plasma medicine; plasma thrusters

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Plasma physics issues are crucial for the design and optimization of efficient electric thrusters for space applications. Such thrusters are going to become the standard for a wide range of missions spanning from small-scale satellites control to ambitious interplanetary missions. However, a full understanding of the processes occurring in the different plasma regimes and of the interaction of the plasma with thruster structures is mandatory to achieve the expected advantages in terms of performance and reliability.

A variety of acceleration mechanisms have been proposed and investigated both based on electrostatic and electromagnetic field–particle interactions. This points to the possibility of leveraging on the knowledge built by the whole plasma physics community so that cross-fertilization from different plasma research fields is desirable.

In this Special Issue, we invite submissions exploring the plasma physics issues related to electric propulsion and plasma acceleration both from a theoretical and experimental point of view. Ideally, it could become a tool for scientists of different communities to explore the open problems from different perspectives and also for the propulsion community to become more aware of the different approaches adopted to tackle them. For these reasons, survey papers and reviews are also warmly welcome.

Dr. Emilio Martines
Dr. Matteo Zuin
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • Electric propulsion
  • Plasma thrusters
  • Plasma sources
  • Hall thrusters
  • Ion thrusters
  • Magneto Plasma Dynamic thrusters
  • VASIMR
  • Helicon
  • Magnetic nozzle
  • Field emission electric propulsion
  • Magnetohydrodynamics
  • Plasma instabilities
  • Particle drifts
  • Plasma–material interaction
  • Plasma diagnostics

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Review

18 pages, 3061 KiB  
Review
Review of Plasma-Induced Hall Thruster Erosion
by Nathan P. Brown and Mitchell L. R. Walker
Appl. Sci. 2020, 10(11), 3775; https://doi.org/10.3390/app10113775 - 29 May 2020
Cited by 35 | Viewed by 9964
Abstract
The Hall thruster is a high-efficiency spacecraft propulsion device that utilizes plasma to generate thrust. The most common variant of the Hall thruster is the stationary plasma thruster (SPT). Erosion of the SPT discharge chamber wall by plasma sputtering degrades thruster performance and [...] Read more.
The Hall thruster is a high-efficiency spacecraft propulsion device that utilizes plasma to generate thrust. The most common variant of the Hall thruster is the stationary plasma thruster (SPT). Erosion of the SPT discharge chamber wall by plasma sputtering degrades thruster performance and ultimately ends thruster life. Many efforts over the past few decades have endeavored to understand wall erosion so that novel thrusters can be designed to operate for the thousands of hours required by many missions. However, due to the challenges presented by the plasma and material physics associated with erosion, a complete understanding has thus far eluded researchers. Sputtering rates are not well quantified, erosion features remain unexplained, and computational models are not yet predictive. This article reviews the physics of plasma-induced SPT erosion, highlights important experimental findings, provides an overview of modeling efforts, and discusses erosion mitigation strategies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plasma Physics in Space Electric Propulsion)
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