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The Hall thruster plume exerts an attenuation influence on S-band electromagnetic wave and plays an important role in the layout strategy of the thruster and antenna on the satellite. In order to study the law of the signal attenuation, an algorithm of geometric light-path was established to numerically describe the transportation of electromagnetic wave in Hall plume. A rectification test of the algorithm accuracy was conducted, and the signal-noise ratios (SNR) were measured by the method of wave transmission in space. According to the test and calculation results at same operation cases, the maximum relative error was 26.1%, and the average relative error was 7.3%. The calculation results kept qualitatively consistent with the test results. Based on those, the 84 typical operation cases of the SNR attenuation of the S-band electromagnetic wave were computed. The calculation results show that the absorption by plume exerted a more remarkable effect than the reflection on signal attenuation, and that the max attenuation region covered the antenna position of 0.3 - 0.6 m, the direction angle of 15° - 30°, and the attenuation value of SNR between -7 dB and - 4dB. This paper provides a reference base for the layout strategy of the thruster and the antenna on satellites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]