Overview of U.S. academic programs in electric propulsion

We present an overview of recent electric propulsion research activities carried out by twelve research groups at US academic institutions. The groups are at: Colorado State University, Cornell University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Michigan, University of Southern California and Worcester Polytechnic Institute The research activities are sponsored by NASA, DoD, DoE and other governmental agencies and industrial partners and include experimental, analytical and numerical work related to: ion thrusters, plasma contactors, colloidal thrusters, Hall thrusters, ablative and gas-fed pulsed plasma thrusters, magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters, arcjets, microwave-heated thrusters, field emitter array cath-odes, micropropulsion, thruster plumes and tethers.