Editing Pulsed plasma thruster (section)

== Uses ==
PPTs are well-suited to uses on relatively small spacecraft with a mass of less than 100&nbsp;kg (particularly [[Cubesat|CubeSats]]) for roles such as [[Spacecraft attitude control|attitude control]], [[Orbital station-keeping|station keeping]], de-orbiting manoeuvres and deep space exploration. Using PPTs could double the life-span of these small satellite missions without significantly increasing complexity or cost due to the inherent simplicity and relatively low cost nature of PPTs.<ref name = THE_ENGINEER/>

The first use of PPTs was on the [[Soviet]] [[Zond 2]] [[space probe]] which carried six PPTs that served as actuators of the attitude control system. The PPT propulsion system was tested for 70 minutes on the 14 December 1964 when the spacecraft was 4.2 million kilometers from Earth.<ref name="Shchepetilov">{{cite journal |last1=Shchepetilov |first1=V. A. |title=Development of Electrojet Engines at the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy |journal=Physics of Atomic Nuclei |date=December 2018 |volume=81 |issue=7 |pages=988–999 |doi=10.1134/S1063778818070104 |bibcode=2018PAN....81..988S |url=https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018PAN....81..988S/abstract |access-date=28 February 2024}}</ref>

A PPT was flown by NASA in November, 2000, as a flight experiment on the [[Earth Observing-1]] spacecraft. The thrusters successfully demonstrated the ability to perform roll control on the spacecraft and demonstrated that the [[electromagnetic interference]] from the pulsed plasma did not affect other spacecraft systems.<ref name = NASAPPT/> Pulsed plasma thrusters are also an avenue of research used by universities for starting experiments with electric propulsion due to the relative simplicity and lower costs involved with PPTs as opposed to other forms of electric propulsion such as [[Hall-effect thruster|Hall-effect ion thrusters]].<ref name = SURREY_UNI/>