NASA GRC High Power Electromagnetic Thruster Program

Abstract

Interest in high power electromagnetic propulsion has been revived to support a variety of future space missions, such as platform maneuvering in low earth orbit, cost‐effective cargo transport to lunar and Mars bases, asteroid and outer planet sample return, deep space robotic exploration, and piloted missions to Mars and the outer planets. Magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD) thrusters have demonstrated, at the laboratory level, the capacity to process megawatts of electrical power while providing higher thrust densities than current electric propulsion systems. The ability to generate higher thrust densities permits a reduction in the number of thrusters required to perform a given mission and alleviates the system complexity associated with multiple thruster arrays. The specific impulse of an MPD thruster can be optimized to meet given mission requirements, from a few thousand seconds with heavier gas propellants up to 10,000 seconds with hydrogen propellant. In support of NASA space science and human exploration strategic initiatives, Glenn Research Center is developing and testing pulsed, MW‐class MPD thrusters as a prelude to long‐duration high power thruster tests. The research effort includes numerical modeling of self‐field and applied‐field MPD thrusters and experimental testing of quasi‐steady MW‐class MPD thrusters in a high power pulsed thruster facility. This paper provides an overview of the GRC high power electromagnetic thruster program and the pulsed thruster test facility.