Abstract Development of electrodeless radiofrequency plasma thrusters, eg, a helicon
thruster, has been one the of challenging topics for future high-power and long-lived electric …

Innovations for terrestrial transportation technologies, eg, cars, aircraft, and so on, have
driven historical industries so far, and a similar breakthrough is now occurring in space …

REGULUS is a propulsion platform for CubeSats. It integrates the Magnetically Enhanced
Thruster (MET) and its subsystems (ie, fluidic line, electronics, and thermo-structural …

In this paper, a methodology is presented to compute the plasma properties (eg,, density
and temperature) accounting for the dynamics of the excited states. The proposed strategy …

This article is devoted to the presentation of a numerical model of a Helicon Plasma Thruster
(HPT) which relies on: 1) the 3-D adVanced fluId dRifT diffUsion plaSma solver (3D …

A cathode-less radio frequency (RF) thruster is a plasma-based system for space
propulsion. It consists on a source for plasma generation driven by an RF antenna and a …

This article is devoted to the presentation of a semianalytical model of a helicon plasma
thruster based on: 1) a 0-D global source model (GSM) for the simulation of the plasma …

The accurate simulation of the plasma transport in helicon sources is a key aspect to
improve the design of Helicon Plasma Thrusters (HPTs). Specifically, the 3D-VIRTUS code …

We have numerically studied how an actual confinement magnetostatic field affects power
deposition in a helicon source. We have solved the wave propagation by means of two …

This thesis is dedicated to the development of several diagnostics for the characterization of
electric propulsion devices in general and of RF and helicon plasma thrusters in particular …