A numerical code has been developed for the design and performance estimation of an air propel-lant Continuous-Wave (CW) laser thruster. Since the heating and energy loss mechanisms of laser thrusters are quite different from chemical thrusters, interest is focused on analyzing Laser-Sustained Plasmas (LSPs) in detail. In order to model the LSP, the physical and thermodynamic properties of air plasma are incorporated, and the laser absorption of the plasma is evaluated considering the electron-ion and electron-neutral inverse Brehmsstrahlung, and the radiation energy transport is computed by the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method. Calculations showed that the code successfully calculated radiation energy losses and energy conversions, and the temperatures and positions of LSPs.
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