Magnetically Enhanced Vacuum Arc Thruster

Alameda Applied Sciences Corporation proposes to develop a new type of electric propulsion device dubbed the Magnetically Enhanced Vacuum Arc Thruster (MVAT). This thruster is itself a variant on the Vacuum Arc Thruster that has been demonstrated via a recently concluded Phase I SBIR contracts from NASA. The VAT was verified to be a throttleable low mass (150g) high efficiency (10% measured), high Isp (1000-3000s) electric propulsion device that can be remotely adjusted to deliver individual impulse bits from 0.25?Ns to 50?Ns with repetition rates varying from 1?1000 Hz while all the time providing an Isp of >1000s. The MVAT proposed here is a pulsed device that uses the magnetic field produced by the inductor in the PPU to increase the ISP even further and hence improve thrust and efficiency. The pulsed magnetic field will also be used to confine expanding plasma plume thereby limiting contamination effects. The MVAT can provide a wide range of impulse bits and a variety of repetition rates, which could satisfy coarse and ultra-fine control demands integrated in the same simple system, while offering low mass (<300g including the PPU), simplicity (no moving parts), high efficiency (?15%) and low cost of manufacturing.