The present invention relates to electrospray thrusters, processes of making electrospray thrusters, and methods of using such electrospray thrusters. Applicant's thruster incorporates a unique geometry for the emitters and extractor grid that effectively eliminates ion interception on the grid, which is the primary failure mechanism of current devices, yet maintains the electric field conditions necessary for ion emission to occur. Without grid impingement, the thrust produced by the thruster is increased and thruster operational lifetime is increased substantially. Additionally, this non-traditional geometry also allows for higher electric fields at the emitter tip for a given applied voltage, thus enabling lower operational voltage of the thruster as compared to conventional designs.
Electrospray thruster with inverted geometry
2022-06-14
Patent
Electronic Resource
English
ELECTROSPRAY THRUSTER FOR CUBESAT
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2011
|Electrospray Thruster for CubeSat
AIAA | 2011
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