US Patent Issued to CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE on April 8 for "Method for controlling an ion thruster, and ion thruster system" (French Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,270,388, issued on April 8, was assigned to CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE (Paris).

"Method for controlling an ion thruster, and ion thruster system" was invented by Jacques Gierak (Le Plessis-Pate, France).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method for controlling an ion thruster including an emission electrode, an extraction electrode and a conductive liquid which is deposited on the emission electrode, the ion thruster configured for emitting an ion beam when an electric field is applied to the conductive liquid, the ion beam providing thrust to the thruster, the thrust depending on an emission current Iem and an ion emissio...