Electric Propulsion -- University of Michigan Plasmadynamics & Electric Propulsion Laboratory (PEPL)

New publications:
44^th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference and Exhibit, Hartford, CT, July 20-23, 2008
30^th International Electric Propulsion Conference (IEPC), Florence, Italy, September 17-20, 2007
43^rd AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference and Exhibit, Cincinnati, OH, July 8-11, 2007
34^th IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science (ICOPS), Albuquerque, New Mexico, June 17-22, 2007

Welcome to the Plasmadynamics and Electric Propulsion Laboratory (PEPL) at the University of Michigan Department of Aerospace Engineering. The lab was founded in 1992 under the direction of Professor Alec Gallimore and since that time has been embarked on an experimental and theoretical program with the following goals:

To make electric propulsion (EP) devices more efficient and of better performance;
To understand spacecraft integration issues that could impede the widespread use of these devices on scientific, commercial, and military spacecraft; and
To identify non-propulsion applications of EP systems (e.g., plasma processing, space-plasma simulation).

The centerpiece of the laboratory is the large vacuum test facility that was built in the early 1960s by the Bendix corporation and was later donated to the university in 1982. This cylindrical stainless-steel clad tank, which is 9 m long and 6 m in diameter, is the largest vacuum facility of its kind at any university in the nation. At high-vacuum, the chamber employs seven cryopumps, with a combined pumping speed of 500,000 l/s on air, and 240,000 l/s on xenon.