In recent years, there has been growing interest in new propulsion systems due to several factors, such as increased demand from small satellites, the need for green propellants, and the all-electric trend. This project aims to develop the hybrid propellant thruster using plasma discharge as an ignition method. Historically, there has been no hybrid propellant thruster fired in space, although it is widely considered in many applications, e.g., for small satellites, deep-space missions, Mars ascent vehicles, and orbit injection. The proposed hybrid propellant thruster (HPT) is high-thrust chemical propulsion, using green and low-cost propellants. Green propellants are non-toxic, non-volatile, safe, environmentally friendly, and offer much safer, faster, and cost-effective spacecraft ground operations and launches, which are key for the future New Space economy. HPT may offer some advantages over currently developed and used “green” liquid propellants. Hybrid propulsion may offer performance comparable to bipropellant, but with complexity and mass typical for the monopropellant or even lower. The plasma discharge similar to that in pulsed plasma thruster (PPT) will be used for ignition. PPTs usually work with solid fuel blocks, as in hybrids. Electric arc on the surface of the solid fuel and/or in the oxidizer flow generates plasma, which could work as an ignition source [6], [7]. The development and testing of the plasma discharge ignition will be used to assess if the PDI can be extended to implement electric propulsive mode into the developed HPTand create a multimode propulsion system. It could offer high-thrust (200 – 300s Isp) and high-performance (> 1000s Isp) propulsive modes. The breadboard model of the thruster will be developed to perform plasma discharge ignition verification and hot-fire testing.
