For approximately 20 years starting with early theoretical proposals in the 1980's through the design and testing of several working models (mid 1980's to present) the concept for a microwave arcjet thruster utilizing a free-floating plasma discharge within a resonant cavity has been explored. All of these studies and designs were based on and utilized macro-scale fabrication techniques and technologies. This evaluation derives a theoretical model/design of the thruster that will support shrinking of the thruster to a much smaller scale (Micro-Thruster, millimeters versus the present Macro-Thruster, centimeters) and proposes that the smaller size thruster when used in numbers will provide superior performance to the larger size thruster that has been examined to date.
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