Announcing a Special Issue of the
IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science
Plasma Propulsion
(Scheduled for October 2008)

Plasma propulsion is a very rapidly growing area of plasma science and technology. Experiments, modeling and
computer simulations have contributed significantly to the understanding of the physics of plasma propulsion.
Plasma propulsion includes a broad variety of means to achieve high velocity and thereby offering a large mass
saving for satellites as compared to chemical rockets. These technologies are categorized into three groups:
electrothermal propulsion, electrostatic propulsion and electromagnetic propulsion. Many new plasma propulsion
devices have been developed recently including numerous successful attempts to miniaturize plasma propulsion
technology. The peculiarity of the thruster plasmas is that plasma conditions span from collisionless non-equilibrium
state to collision dominated equilibrium situation dependent on type of propulsion device. In recent years both
theoretical and experimental methods for studying plasma generation, acceleration, electron and ion transport,
plasma-wall interactions have advanced. Significant progress has been achieved in plasma diagnostics including
electrostatic and electromagnetic probes and sensors, and spectroscopic methods, and in plasma simulation
techniques such as Particle-in-Cell (PIC), Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC), fluid models, hybrid approaches,
multi-dimensional analysis. This Special Issue will provide a broad forum to address very basis aspects of plasma
propulsion physics including measuring techniques, modeling and simulation of the plasma conditions typical for
plasma propulsion devices.

Contributions will address basis physical aspects of various plasma propulsion devices including, but not restricted
to:

Emphasis will be placed on experimental techniques, theory and simulation that improve our understanding of the
phenomena in plasma thrusters. All contributions should be submitted electronically at the IEEE Manuscript Central
at http://tps-ieee.manuscriptcentral.com

Submissions are due 1 November 2007

Guest Editors