Fundamental Study of a Laser-Assisted Plasma Thruster

In this study we propose a novel laser‐assisted plasma thruster, in which plasma is induced through a laser beam irradiation onto a target, or a laser‐assisted process, and accelerated by electrical means instead of a direct acceleration only by using a laser beam. Inducing the short‐duration conductive plasma between electrodes with certain voltage, the short‐duration switching or a discharge is achieved, in the laser‐assisted thruster. Also, reductions of energy losses to electrodes, electrodes erosion, and an improvement of specific impulse through the intense current caused by the short duration discharge can be expected. Here, a fundamental study of newly developed two‐dimensional laser‐assisted pulsed‐plasma thruster (PPT) and coaxial laser assisted PPT is conducted. A DC power supply (10 ∼ 600 V) was used for the power source, and an Nd:YAG laser (wave length: 1.06μm, maximum pulse energy: 1.4J/pulse, pulse width: 10 nsec) was utilized. With this system, the peak current of about 500A with its duration of 3 μsec (FWHM) was observed in a typical case.