Electric thruster performance for orbit raising and maneuvering

Several electric thrusters are compared to chemical rockets for orbit raising and in-orbit maneuvering applications. For power-intensive payloads and satellites, electric propulsion can show substantial performance advantages over chemical propulsion. The arcjet is promising for near-future applications because of its low power requirements. The electrostatic thruster offers additional performance advantages over the arcjet, but with added power requirements. The performance of the electrostatic thruster can be enhanced considerably if the power processing requirements can be reached.