Advances in Electric Propulsion Technology for Aerospace Engineering
A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Aerospace Science and Engineering".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 February 2026 | Viewed by 53
Special Issue Editors
Interests: plasma nanoscience; advanced materials for aerospace; electric propulsion
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: safety engineering; uncertainty management in complex aerospace systems (reliability, sensitivity analysis, surrogate modeling, etc.)
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Rapid advancements in electric propulsion and hydrogen fuel cell technologies are driving the ongoing transition to sustainable, high-performance aerospace systems. These innovations offer significant potential to reduce emissions, improve efficiency, and enable new mission capabilities across both space and atmospheric flight. This Special Issue aims to showcase recent progress and interdisciplinary research in electric propulsion systems for spacecraft, as well as the development and application of hydrogen fuel cells for aerial platforms, particularly in the context of small aircraft and emerging aviation technologies.
We invite contributions covering a broad range of topics, including but not limited to: ion and Hall-effect thrusters, pulsed plasma thrusters, electrospray propulsion, and novel propulsion architectures for satellites, CubeSats, and interplanetary missions; hydrogen-based fuel cells and hybrid-electric propulsion for UAVs and small aircraft; computational modeling and CFD of propulsion systems; AI-driven design and optimization of propulsion and control systems; and autonomous flight and navigation algorithms integrated with next-generation propulsion technologies.
This Special Issue also welcomes research on plasma–surface interactions, in-space propulsion testing, materials for thruster components, power management, and mission integration strategies. Through this collection, we aim to highlight not only the current state-of-the-art but also future directions that bridge space and atmospheric applications through advanced propulsion and intelligent systems.
Dr. Weerasinghe Janith
Prof. Dr. Jérôme Morio
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- electric propulsion
- plasma thrusters
- ion engines
- Hall-effect thrusters
- hydrogen fuel cells
- aerospace propulsion
- UAVs
- CubeSats
- CFD
- artificial intelligence
- autonomous systems
- hybrid–electric aircraft
- spacecraft mobility
- advanced aerospace systems
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