Patent ID: 11905936
Assignee: ENPULSION GMBH
Field: Transport (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC F  B | IPC B  F

Claim 7:
8. An ion thruster for thrust vectored propulsion of a spacecraft, comprising:
a reservoir for a propellant,
an emitter having a base and, on one side of the base, two or more outlets for emitting ions of the propellant, wherein the base is connected to the reservoir for providing flow of propellant from the reservoir to the two or more outlets, and
an extractor facing said one side of the emitter for extracting and accelerating the ions from the emitter, wherein the emitter and the extractor form a common acceleration chamber containing all outlets of the emitter,
wherein the extractor has a separate aperture for each outlet of the emitter for the passage of the ions emitted from each said outlet and wherein the extractor is split into sectors about an axis which orthogonally runs through said one side of the emitter, said sectors being electrically insulated from one another and each sector being allocated to one or more of the outlets.