"Florida-based firm Miles Space has demonstrated a water-fueled electric thruster with very low power demands."(Interesting Engineering, Florida startup tests water thruster, runs on just 1.5W for orbital maneuvers)
"The company tested its technology on a European satellite in September 2024. During the flight test, Miles Space’s Poseidon M1.5 thruster produced 37.5 millinewtons of thrust for five minutes at a specific impulse of 4,800 seconds, while drawing power of 1.5 watts." (Interesting Engineering, Florida startup tests water thruster, runs on just 1.5W for orbital maneuvers)
"The thruster fits into a one-unit cubesat and could be used for applications like descent from low-Earth orbit." (Interesting Engineering, Florida startup tests water thruster, runs on just 1.5W for orbital maneuvers)
Water is a good propellant for rockets. It's cheap, non-toxic, and a common material. Water is not like hydrogen which requires pre-processing. And that makes water easier to handle than hydrogen which must be separated and then turn into a very low temperature. The engine must just expand the water. Basically, the same thruster can use any other liquid from hydrocarbons to hydrogen.
The system can heat the liquid using an electron, or some other particle beams, electric arcs, lasers, or microwave systems. In some models, the system uses antimatter to boil propellant. The system requires only electricity to create the system that creates the plasma. The system can accelerate plasma by using magnets.
Plasma thrusters can get their energy from sunlight or from nuclear reactors. One form of so-called solar- or light-sails is the mirror that focuses sunlight into the rocket's engine chamber. There that system can expand propellant. The parabolic mirror can aim sunlight at the carbon fiber structure. Then the system can inject hydrogen into the chamber. There that carbon fiber structure heats the propellant.
In the most extreme versions, the system uses a laser that can get its energy from the sunlight. The mirror system collects energy and focuses it on the laser element. Then laser beam vaporizes water at hypercritical temperature. There that water turns into plasma.
When we think about the most exotic versions of that kind of system the engine can use some kind of electrolytic system. The system injects a water ball into the engine chamber.
The electrolytic system can break water molecules and then the positive and negative electrodes pull those ions and anions into the different directions. When hydrogen ions travel to the anode and oxygen travel to the cathode that makes it possible to create a very exotic ion engine. The oxygen travels to the plate at the front of the chamber. Hydrogen ions can travel out from the engine through the acceleration tube.
That forms asymmetry in the power. The positive particles travel to the plate where they can from the push. And then another, negative particles travel back from the system from time there they don't create thrust. Those poles in the system can be opposite. Those kinds of ion engines are interesting tools.
https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/startup-tests-water-fueled-plasma-thruster?group=test_b
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