Research on Charged Particle Electrostatic Thrusters.

Research and development was performed on the generation and acceleration of charged particles toward the ultimate development of a colloid thruster. Standard and specialized laboratory techniques were used to construct and test thruster components. Particle emitter material and geometry studies were made which include capillary needles, rows of needles, and an annular geometry. Both liquid metals and organic solvents containing conductive dopants were investigated as potential propellants. A device which was developed to measure mass flowrates as low as a few microgramssec was used to test the bipolar thruster. Thrust vectoring techniques were investigated including deflection of positive and negative particle beams using a minimum of electrodes. A 10 positive and 10 negative capillary needle bipolar thruster having vectoring capability was tested. Initial measurements showed the feasibility of using measureable continuous operational parameters to determine operational levels which cannot be measured directly. Author