PIT – What it is PIT - Pulsed Inductive Thruster NuPIT – Nuclear Pulsed Inductive Plasma Step after the grided ion thruster Advantage: No Electrode –No electrode means that constant pulsing of the plasma will not lead to erroded electrode –This leads to longer run time of the thruster Radiation is main source of damage to inductive coil

Why we care Longer life than electrode thruster Higher Specific Impulses (2000 – 5000 s) Efficiencies up to 50% (relatively fixed) Why I care? –Attracted to this due to passion for NEP and this seemed to be an advancement on the standard Ion Thruster

Origins & How it works Not sure of Origin –Perhaps comes after ion thruster How it works –Pulsed plasma uses Lorentz force to throw ions –Gas usually used is ammonia –Explain the following diagrams to describe the ionization and discharge of the plasma

Diagram style

Future Prospects Attractive for deep space missions due to efficiency at delivering payloads Has yet to fly in space Certain requirements for this tech to be attractive –Specific mass ~ 1 kg / kW –PITs are heavy and power hungry –Need capacitors to recharge in 5 to 10 ms to satisfy this

References Kurt A. Pulzin, Scaling and Systems Considerations in Pulsed Inductive Thrusters, NASA-Marshall Space Flight Center, USA, Presented September 2007 Dailey and Lovberg, The PIT MkV Pulsed Inductive Thruster, NASA-Lewis Research Center, USA, July 1993 Frisbee and Mikellides, The Nuclear-Electric Pulsed Inductive Thruster (NuPIT): Mission Analysis for Prometheus, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, USA, July 2005 Pavlos G. Mikellides, Pulsed Inductive Thruster (PIT): Modeling and Validation Using the MACH2 Code, NASA-Glenn Research Center, USA, March 2003 “High-Power Electromagnetic Thruster Being Developed.” Online. Available: 9 March 2008