ION-I
Electric Propulsion Initiative · University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
About ION-I
ION-I is an undergraduate student organization in the Grainger College of Engineering. Its members design, simulate, and test electric propulsion hardware. The current project is the club's first gridded ion thruster, which uses argon as propellant.
The electron source for the thruster is IonSpark, a heaterless, insertless hollow cathode adapted from a design by Gott and Xu. It is currently being tested in vacuum.
Our subteams
- Discharge ChamberDesigns the stage of ION-I's ion thruster where argon propellant is ionized.
- Ion OpticsDesigns the screen and accelerator grids that extract and accelerate ions in ION-I's thruster.
- Plasma SourceDevelops ION-I's electron source, the IonSpark heaterless hollow cathode.
Learn more
- Gridded ion thruster: how the thruster works, stage by stage
- Jargon and acronyms: SRR, PDR, PIC-MCC, and the rest
- Design reviews: how a design gets approved before it is built
- Stepwise ionization: the physics of the argon discharge
- Publications: posters, talks, and reference works
- Editing guide: how to edit and create pages
Featured picture
Argon plasma from IonSpark, seen through the vacuum chamber viewport.
Coming up
- 17 Oct 2026: Discharge Chamber preliminary design review
- 19 Nov 2026: Discharge Chamber critical design review
- 9–10 Apr 2027: Engineering Open House
- 28–29 Apr 2027: Undergraduate Research Symposium
Recently updated
- Gallery 24 Oct
- Calendar 24 Oct
- Sponsors 24 Oct
- Editing guide 24 Oct
- 2026–27 season 20 Oct
- Gridded ion thruster 20 Oct
Sponsors
ION-I's work is supported by its sponsors. See Sponsors for the current list and sponsorship tiers.