Development of Water Gridded Ion Thruster for Small Satellites: Toward On-Orbit Demonstration

Water as a propellant has many advantages and does not require a pressure vessel for storage. Its high safety level can reduce development cost and time. It is also a resource tightly tied to human spaceflight and found in-situ in the upcoming moon missions.Stored in its liquid state in our thrusters, it is then vaporized at room temperature and low pressure. The resulted steam is then injected in the discharge chambers where it is transformed into plasma. Plasma generation is achieved through flight-proven microwave discharge using Electron Cyclotron Resonance.