Revolutionizing advanced electrodeless plasma thrusters for space transportation

Project Information

ZARATHUSTRA

Grant agreement ID: 950466

DOI

10.3030/950466

EC signature date 14 October 2020

Start date 1 January 2021

End date 30 September 2026

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 499 375,00

EU contribution

€ 1 499 375,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III DE MADRID
Spain

CORDIS provides links to public deliverables and publications of HORIZON projects.

Links to deliverables and publications from FP7 projects, as well as links to some specific result types such as dataset and software, are dynamically retrieved from OpenAIRE .

Publications

Peer reviewed articles (16)

Ion current and energy in the magnetic arch of a cluster of two ECR plasma sources

Author(s): C. Boyé, J. Navarro-Cavallé, M. Merino
Published in: Journal of Electric Propulsion, Issue 4, 2025, ISSN 2731-4596
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
DOI: 10.1007/s44205-025-00100-w

PIC/Fluid simulations of the plasma expansion in a planar magnetic arch

Author(s): M Guaita, E Ahedo, M Merino
Published in: Plasma Sources Science and Technology, Issue 34, 2025, Page(s) 015007, ISSN 0963-0252
Publisher: Institute of Physics Publishing
DOI: 10.1088/1361-6595/adab8e

An Implicit, Conservative Electrostatic Particle-in-Cell Algorithm for Paraxial Magnetic Nozzles

Author(s): Jimenez, Pedro; Chacon, Luis; Merino, Mario
Published in: Journal of Computational Physics, 2024, ISSN 0021-9991
Publisher: Academic Press
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcp.2024.112826

Kinetic theory of drift-gradient modes in a partially magnetised $E\!\times\!B$ plasma

Author(s): Jesús J. Ramos, Matteo Ripoli
Published in: Journal of Plasma Physics, Issue 92, 2026, ISSN 0022-3778
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
DOI: 10.1017/s0022377825101086

Low-frequency oscillations in the magnetic nozzle of a Helicon plasma thruster

Author(s): Davide Maddaloni, Borja Bayón-Buján, Jaume Navarro-Cavallé, Mario Merino, Filippo Terragni
Published in: Plasma Sources Science and Technology, Issue 34, 2025, Page(s) 045008, ISSN 0963-0252
Publisher: Institute of Physics Publishing
DOI: 10.1088/1361-6595/adc40d

Non-Maxwellian electron effects on the macroscopic response of a Hall thruster discharge from an axial–radial kinetic model

Author(s): Alberto Marín-Cebrián, Enrique Bello-Benítez, Adrián Domínguez-Vázquez, Eduardo Ahedo
Published in: Plasma Sources Science and Technology, Issue 33, 2025, Page(s) 025008, ISSN 0963-0252
Publisher: Institute of Physics Publishing
DOI: 10.1088/1361-6595/ad227c

Kinetic electron cooling in magnetic nozzles: experiments and modeling

Author(s): June Young Kim, Kyoung-Jae Chung, Kazunori Takahashi, Mario Merino, Eduardo Ahedo
Published in: Plasma Sources Science and Technology, 2023, ISSN 0963-0252
Publisher: Institute of Physics Publishing
DOI: 10.1088/1361-6595/acd71c

Drift-gradient instabilities in a plasma with 2D gradient effects: Application to a magnetic nozzle

Author(s): Matteo Ripoli, Eduardo Ahedo, Mario Merino
Published in: Physics of Plasmas, Issue 32, 2025, ISSN 1070-664X
Publisher: American Institute of Physics
DOI: 10.1063/5.0277367

Benchmark for two-dimensional large scale coherent structures in partially magnetized <i>E</i>  ×  <i>B</i> plasmas—community collaboration &amp; lessons learned

Author(s): Andrew T Powis, Eduardo Ahedo, Alejandro Álvarez Laguna, Nicolas Barléon, Enrique Bello-Benítez, Lucas Beving, Jean-Pierre Boeuf, Guillaume Bogopolsky, Anne Bourdon, Filippo Cichocki, Bénédicte Cuenot, Andrew Denig, Zoltán Donkó, Paul-Quentin Elias, Miguel P Encinar, Denis Eremin, Pablo Fajardo, Farbod Faraji, Gwenael Fubiani, Laurent Garrigues, Kentaro Hara, Peter Hartmann, Matthew Hopkins
Published in: Plasma Sources Science and Technology, Issue 35, 2026, Page(s) 025002, ISSN 0963-0252
Publisher: Institute of Physics Publishing
DOI: 10.1088/1361-6595/ae3985

Data-driven sparse modeling of oscillations in plasma space propulsion

Author(s): Borja Bayón-Buján, Mario Merino
Published in: Machine Learning: Science and Technology, Issue 5, 2024, Page(s) 035057, ISSN 2632-2153
Publisher: IOP Publishing
DOI: 10.1088/2632-2153/ad6d29

Analysis of a cusped helicon plasma thruster discharge

Author(s): Pedro Jiménez; Jiewei Zhou; Jaume Navarro-Cavallé; Pablo Fajardo; Mario Merino; Eduardo Ahedo
Published in: Plasma Sources Science and Technology, 2023, ISSN 1361-6595
Publisher: IOP Publishing
DOI: 10.1088/1361-6595/ad01da

Data-driven analysis of anomalous transport and three-wave-coupling effects in an $$E \times B$$ plasma

Author(s): Borja Bayón-Buján, Enrique Bello-Benítez, Jiewei Zhou, Mario Merino
Published in: Journal of Electric Propulsion, Issue 4, 2025, ISSN 2731-4596
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
DOI: 10.1007/s44205-025-00158-6

Plasma acceleration in a magnetic arch

Author(s): Mario Merino, Diego García-Lahuerta, Eduardo Ahedo
Published in: Plasma Sources Science and Technology, 2023, ISSN 0963-0252
Publisher: Institute of Physics Publishing
DOI: 10.1088/1361-6595/acd476

Fluid-kinetic model of a propulsive magnetic nozzle

Author(s): Mario Merino, Judit Nuez, Eduardo Ahedo
Published in: Plasma Sources Science and Technology, 2021, ISSN 0963-0252
Publisher: Institute of Physics Publishing
DOI: 10.1088/1361-6595/ac2a0b

Thrust measurements of a waveguide electron cyclotron resonance thruster

Author(s): M. R. Inchingolo, M. Merino, M. Wijnen, J. Navarro-Cavallé
Published in: Journal of Applied Physics, Issue 135, 2025, ISSN 0021-8979
Publisher: American Institute of Physics
DOI: 10.1063/5.0186778

Effect of injection conditions on the non-linear behavior of the ECDI and related turbulent transport

Author(s): E. Bello-Benítez, A. Marín-Cebrián, E. Ahedo
Published in: Physics of Plasmas, Issue 32, 2025, ISSN 1070-664X
Publisher: American Institute of Physics
DOI: 10.1063/5.0238207

Conference proceedings (1)

Implicit Conservative Particle-In-Cell Kinetic Simulations of Magnetic Nozzles

Author(s): M. Merino, P. Jiménez, L. Chacón
Published in: 2023 IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science (ICOPS), 2024, Page(s) 1-2, ISBN 979-8-3503-0266-0
Publisher: IEEE
DOI: 10.1109/icops45740.2023.10481098