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A New Design For A Plasma Engine Fuels On Only Thin Air
Choosing what orbit to put a satellite in always comes with trade-offs. When it comes to Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO), between 100-450 km, there are distinct advantages. Remote sensing cameras can take better pictures, comms and radar require less power, and atmospheric drag will automatically clean up dead satellites. But there’s also a cost - air friction requires any satellite in this orbit to use an engine near constantly to stay in orbit, which in turn requires fuel - typically in the form of expensive gases like Xenon. So, as part of his PhD thesis at the University of Stuttgart, which is available in arXiv, Francesco Romano decided to solve that problem by using the very air molecules that cause that friction as fuel for a plasma engine to keep satellites aloft indefinitely in VLEO.
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