A Multipropellant RF Plasma Thruster

Abstract

This paper presents some preliminary estimates of the potential performance of a multipropellant RF plasma thruster and its format should be considered as a technical note. Interpolations of experimental results from similar devices found in the literature suggest that the first stage of such a thruster, based on well-established RF plasma torch technology, is essentially an electrothermal device. The specific impulse, in particular, is shown to be proportional to the square root of the specific power (power per unit mass flow rate).