The Course will provide the basics of low thrust engines: applications and classifications for chemical and electrical LTE, esothermic and endotermic engines. Thruster Principles, The Rocket Equation. Specific Impulse.  Thruster Efficiency.  Monopropellant cold thrusters, Bi-propellant thrusters, Resistojet.  Design of small thrusters: tank design, feed systems, catalyst, thrust chamber, nozzle. Electric Propulsion Background and Electric Thruster Types, Ion Thruster Geometry. Force Transfer in Ion and Hall Thrusters. Basic Plasma Physics. Coulomb force, Electric Field, Magnetic field, Lorentz equation, Maxwell’s Equations . Plasma as a Fluid: Conservation Equations.  Diffusion in Partially Ionized Gases.Diffusion and Mobility Without and Across Magnetic Fields.  Sheaths at the Boundaries of Plasmas: Debye Sheaths, Pre-Sheaths, Child–Langmuir Sheaths. Generalized Sheath Solution.  Ion Thruster Plasma Generators. DC Discharge Ion thruster. 0-D Ring-Cusp Ion Thruster Model. Magnetic Multipole Boundaries.  Electron and Ion Confinement.  Power and Energy Balance in the Discharge Chamber. rf Ion Thrusters. 2-D Computer Models of the Ion Thruster Discharge Chamber. Ion Thruster Accelerator Grids: configurations and life; Ion Optics and Perveance Limits. Electron Backstreaming. High-Voltage and Electrode Breakdown. Hollow Cathodes.

Overview and History of Airbreathing hypersonic propulsion. Airbreathing engine design and sizing for given mission requirements. Inlet, combustor and nozzle design. Reighley equation for heat flux in subsonic and supersonic combustion. Performance. Solid and liquid Propellants.  CFD for ramjet and scramjet applications.