Electrospray Sizing Calculator

A first-order model linking emitter array design to mission capability — thrust, specific impulse, power draw and Δv. Free to use, no sign-up. Order-of-magnitude estimates for early design trades, not flight-qualification numbers.

Thruster

Number of emitters (N)

Current per emitter

Extraction voltage

Propellant

System efficiency (thrust/power)

Thrust per emitter: F₁ = I·√(2·V·m/q). Total thrust = N·F₁. Exhaust velocity vₑ = √(2·V·q/m). This models the pure-ion regime; droplet mode lowers Isp and raises thrust.

Mission (delta-V)

Satellite wet mass

Propellant carried

Available power

Total thrust

— µN

Specific impulse

— s

Thruster power

— W

Mass flow

— µg/s

Δv budget

— m/s

Firing time

— h

What these numbers actually mean

How big is this satellite?

How strong is this thrust?

Thrust vs. emitter count

The teal dot marks your current configuration. This is the "hyphae" scaling argument: thrust grows linearly with the number of parallel emitter channels, for as long as power and propellant feed keep up.

Modelling is the easy part. Measuring it is where programs stall — the numbers above only become real on a bench that can alternate polarity and sense current on the high-voltage side. That is exactly what Perun Bench is built to do.

See Perun Bench