Krypton Propellant

BACKGROUND

In spacecraft propulsion, a Hall-effect thruster is a type of ion thruster in which the propellant is accelerated by an electric field. Based on the discovery by Edwin Hall, Hall-effect thrusters use a magnetic field to limit the electrons' axial motion and then use them to ionize propellant, efficiently accelerate the ions to produce thrust, and neutralize the ions in the plume. The Hall-effect thruster is classed as a moderate specific impulse space propulsion technology and has benefited from considerable theoretical and experimental research since the 1960s.