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US 2023/0406544 A1Published application
Micro-propulsion system
AssigneeThe George Washington University
InventorsMichael KEIDAR, Jonathan Kolbeck, Denis Zolotukhin
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A thruster has a first stage and a second stage. The first stage is a plasma source that outputs a plasma. The second stage is an accelerator. In one embodiment, the second stage is a plasma accelerator that accelerates the plasma. In another embodiment, the second stage is an ion accelerator that accelerates the ions from the plasma.
Claims19
A thruster comprising:
- a plasma source having an output that emits plasma;
- and
- an accelerator positioned near the output to receive the plasma and accelerate the plasma.
A thruster comprising:
- a plasma source having an output that emits plasma;
- a metal cone coupled to the plasma source, said metal cone having an input that receives the plasma and an output;
- a screen grid positioned adjacent the cone output and having one or more screen grid openings, said screen grid positively charged to repel ions between the one or more screen grid openings;
- and
- an accelerator grid positioned adjacent the screen grid and having one or more accelerator grid openings, said accelerator grid negatively charged to attract ions between the screen grid openings and accelerate the ions through the accelerator grid openings.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.