Abstract
A porous conical type electrospray array thruster consisting of 6102 individual emitters is operated at up to 13.3 W power. The design and manufacture of the thruster are described, including its porous glass emitter chip and metallized ceramic extractor chip. A precision mass balance mounted inside a bell jar is used to directly measure the thrust, specific impulse, and efficiency in negative polarity, from 42 ± 0.5 μ N, 1050 ± 26 s, and 57 ± 1.9 % at - 1000 V and 0.38 W to 174 ± 0.5 μ N, 420 ± 2 s, and 21 ± 0.3 % at - 1300 V and 1.7 W. Additional negative polarity experiments in a 2 meter vacuum facility demonstrate powers from order 1 μ W to over 10 W, spanning 7 orders of magnitude. Power and performance measurements were not repeated for positive mode operation, as this was found to induce arcing between the emitter and extractor electrodes at 1400 V and above. The drop in efficiency from - 1000 V to - 1300 V operation in the bell jar is discussed within the context of facility effects, and secondary charged particle flux to the thruster is identified as a likely contributor. Finally, the performance of the thruster is considered relative to scaling electrospray systems to higher power robustly. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s44205-025-00114-4.