Global and PIC Modeling of Air - Breathing Plasma Engines

Over the past half century, Earth-orbiting artificial satellites have addressed a wide variety of problems in science and technology, from remote sensing and geodesy to defense and navigation. Satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), in particular, allow for lowered launch costs and communication latencies at the expense of significant atmospheric drag. With renewed interest in LEO satellite networks for telecommunication and deep space mission support, novel propulsion systems are necessary for efficient orbit keeping over the mission lifespan. Unlike traditional electric and thermodynamic systems, air breathing plasma engines (ABPE) do not require on-board propellant, eliminating associated weight, cost, and complexity while increasing service life. In this work, we study the overall feasibility, plasma chemistry, and physics of an electron beam driven ABPE.

We consider a two - stage ABPE, with an electron beam driven ionization region and an E × B acceleration zone. We study the general feasibility of a model LEO satellite equipped with our proposed ABPE. We construct a global model for the ambient air generated plasma, formulating and solving the appropriate particle, energy, and momentum conservation equations in the presence of complex air chemistry and exploit kinetic particle-in-cell (PIC) techniques to simulate the ionization and acceleration regions of the ABPE.