Plasma propulsion for rocket engine using ion thruster

Abstract

We know that Rocket is a device which moves on thrust provided by accelerating fuel oxidizers which is nothing but the propellant and exhausting it from the nozzle of the rocket. But in plasma propulsion, ionized gas is used to produce thrust. plasma contain charged particles, whose motion is strongly affected due to electric and magnetic fields, so with the application of electric or electromagnetic fields to plasma, it can accelerate its constituents and forward them to the back of rocket to produce the required thrust.The necessary fields can be generated by using magnets and electrode, or by passing electric currents through the plasma. Various ion thrusters have been designed, but mainly they are categories by two methods according to how the ions are accelerated. 1) Electrostatic ion thruster 2) electromagnetic ion thruster. In electrostatic ion thruster, the Coulomb force is used and are categorized as accelerating the ions in the direction of the electric field. Electromagnetic ion thrusters use the Lorentz force to accelerate the ions. Electric thrusters tend to produce low thrust, which results in low acceleration. Ion, Hall and MPD, VASIMR thrusters are variants of electric plasma rocket technology. Few of them generate plasmas through electrode based discharge while others use coil- magnetic induction or antenna- generated radiation.