Work in Progress

 

 

      Our present work in progress includes reviewing of atmospheric propellants for electric thrusters. These can be obtained in the context of In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) technology from the atmospheres of stellar bodies of our Solar system. This work is supported by the project AETHER, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 821953.     

 

Previous work in progress concerned applications of Global Modeling (GM) in plasma reactors and in Electric Propulsion thrusters fed with inert and reactive atomic and molecular propellants, either pure or in mixtures. In this domain, we have notably participated in AO7048 Project “Helicon Plasma Thruster for Space Missions” of ESA. Typical results are electric thruster Functioning Diagrams (FD) for N2 propellant, together with the corresponding Plasma Components Compsition (PCC), as follows:

Functioning Diagram (FD) for the "core" region of a Helicon Thruster (HelT) fed with 5 sccm of N2.
Plasma Components Composition (PCC) for the "core" region of a Helicon Thruster (HelT) fed with 5 sccm of N2.

      

 

 

      We are also working on ISRU issues, notably in relation with "air-breathing" and CO2 fueling technology.