Abstract—

A scheme of a spacecraft thruster based on pulsed plasma railgun with capillary–porous electrodes is proposed. Electrodes of this kind are renewable and do not degrade while their lifetime is limited by the stored amount of the filler metal of the capillary–porous electrode. Operating regimes in which capillary–porous electrodes are efficient are found. In these regimes, the proposed railgun construction can yield the thrust of several newtons and specific impulse of several tens of km/s. Li, Sn, and Ga can be used as filler metals of capillary–porous electrodes with porous mats made from molybdenum or tungsten.

中文翻译：

---

带毛细管多孔电极的等离子轨道炮

摘要-

提出了一种基于带毛细管多孔电极的脉冲等离子体轨道炮的航天器推进器方案。这种电极是可再生的并且不会降解，而它们的寿命受到毛细管多孔电极填充金属的存储量的限制。发现了毛细管多孔电极有效的操作方式。在这些情况下，提议的轨道炮结构可以产生几牛顿的推力和几十公里/秒的比冲。Li、Sn 和 Ga 可用作毛细管多孔电极的填充金属，带有由钼或钨制成的多孔垫。