News and announcements
ZARATHUSTRA updates
We will regularly post news and stories about the project and related topics here. If you do not want to miss any update and get access to additional content, follow us on Twitter.

Aerospace Engineering Doctoral Meetings 2023: presentations now online
The PhD students of the ZARATHUSTRA team had the opportunity to present the status of their research in this year's Doctoral Meetings organized on the 22nd, 24th, 29th & 31st of May 2023by the PhD Programme in Aerospace Engineering of...

Meet Matteo Ripoli: plasma instabilities in magnetic nozzles
Hi! My name is Matteo Ripoli, and I have recently joined the ZARATHUSTRA team as a PhD student. My thesis is about the study of plasma instabilities in magnetic nozzles, and I would like to give you a brief summary of my work here at the...

Meet Pedro Jiménez: wave propagation phenomena in Electrodeless Plasma Thrusters
Hi there everybody! My name is Pedro Jiménez. Let me tell you a little bit about my research and what has brought me to the amazing ZARATHUSTRA team. I studied Aerospace Engineering, but I’ve always been inclined to physics and...

New publication: Plasma acceleration in a magnetic arch
Check out the new Open Access publication from the ZARATHUSTRA team: Plasma acceleration in a magnetic arch. The paper models and simulates for the first time the plasma expansion in the magnetic arch that forms when two cylindrical...

ZARATHUSTRA participates in ICOPS 2023
The IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science (ICOPS) took place in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on May 21-25. Pedro Jimenez gave two presentations on the results of the ZARATHUSTRA project, highlighting the progress made on experiments...

Mario Merino appointed Adjunct Vice Rector for Inovation, Technology Transfer and Science Park
This May ZARATHUSTRA's P.I. Mario Merino was appointed as Adjunct Vice Rector for Inovation, Technology Transfer and Science Park. This position allows him to play an active role on issues related to the research activity of teaching...

Mario Merino presents ZARATHUSTRA in the EPIC Workshop
On May 9-12, the EPIC Workshop 2023 took place at the “Città della Scienza” conference centre in Naples, Italy. ZARATHUSTRA's PI, Mario Merino, had the opportunity to give a presentation about the project. In his talk he highlighted the...

ZARATHUSTRA participates in PlasmaTech 2023
On April 27th, two members of the ZARATHUSTRA team presented their research progress in the Plasma Processing and Technology International Conference (PlasmaTech) 2023, which was held in Lisbon, Portugal. The conference highlighted...

Radio interview of our PI, Mario Merino
Mario Merino was interviewed today by Manuel Seara, director of the program "A Hombros de Gigantes" in the national radio (RNE). They spoke of rockets, chemical propulsion, and plasma thrusters, with...

Entrevista a Mario Merino (IP) en notiweb, Fundación madri+d
Nuestro Investigador Principal, Mario Merino, ha sido entrevistado por la Fundación para el Conocimiento madri+d en notiweb. Durante la entrevista, el profesor Merino nos habla sobre su trabajo de investigación en el diseño, modelado,...

Experimentos de plasmas y principios de propulsión espacial eléctrica – XXII Semana de la Ciencia y la Innovación
November 2022. Diego García Lahuerta, a member of our ZARATHUSTRA team, and Davide Poli, a member of EP2, have participated in a workshop organized in the framework of the XXII Madrid Science and Innovation Week. The attendees had the...

Meet Borja Bayón Buján: oscillations on plasma discharges
Greetings! My name is Borja Bayón Buján, and I just joined the ZARATHUSTRA team as a Research Assistant. I am currently finishing UC3M’s Master in Space Engineering (MiSE) and as part of my Final Master Thesis I will use data-driven...

Find out how a plasma rocket works – XXII Semana de la Ciencia y la Innovación
This coming Wednesday, November 9, 2022, Davide Maddaloni and our PI, Mario Merino, will show us how a plasma rocket works. The workshop will take place during the XXII Science and Innovation Week 2022, organized by the Community of...

Mario Merino, invited Speaker GEC 2022, Sendai, Japan
On October 3, the 75th Annual Gaseous Electronics Conference was held in Sendai, Japan. Our PI, Mario Merino, was one of the invited speakers with the presentation "Electrodeless plasma thrusters and magnetized plasma expansions for space...

PhD days – UC3M
Some of our team members, Diego García-Lahuerta, Célian Boyé, and Davide Maddaloni, have presented their work on the ZARATHUSTRA project at the PhD Doctoral Meetings - UC3M, which took place during 2022 – 15 & 16 June. It was a good...

Kuriki Award for Young Professionals
ZARATHUSTRA's PI, Mario Merino, has been awarded the prestigious Prof. Kuriki award to young professionals by the Electric Rocket Propulsion Society (ERPS) for his contributions to the development of Electrodeless Plasma Thrusters (EPTs)....

Next participation of the ZARATHUSTRA team at the IEPC 2022 (Boston)
ZARATHUSTRA's PI, Mario Merino, will present the first results of the project at the upcoming International Electric Propulsion Conference (IEPC), which will take place in Boston (USA) on June 19-23, 2022. The paper 'Preliminary model of...

ZARATHUSTRA at the 56th Annual Microwave Power Symposium (IMPI 56)
Pedro Jiménez, a team member EP2 research group, is going to present the paper "Radiofrequency Plasma Heating for Electrodeless Space Thruster Applications" at IMPI 56, where we showcase the research lines of the group on the modeling of...

Meet Davide Maddaloni: Plasma oscillations
Hello reader! My name is Davide Maddaloni, a member of the Zarathustra team as a PhD student. Let me introduce myself. My thesis is about detecting, analyzing and understanding the oscillations occurring within the plasma of different...

NEXTFLOW & ZARATHUSTRA Project Meeting – FEB 2022
The first joint workshop between the ERC Starting Grant projects NEXTFLOW (Next-generation flow diagnostics for control) and ZARATHUSTRA (Revolutionizing advanced electrodeless plasma thrusters for space transportation) took place...

ZARATHUSTRA Seminar at Physics Dept. of UC3M
Our principal investigator, Mario Merino, presented yesterday our ERC project at the Physics Department of UC3M. Mario Merino talked about the main objectives of our project and the first results of our research. He also took the...

ExB Plasmas Workshop 2022 – UC3M
The EP2 research team is organizing the next edition of the International ExB Plasmas Workshop. This Workshop will take place on February 16-18, 2022, and will be online and free for all those interested in attending. All the information,...

Meet Célian Boyé: design and testing of the MARCH thruster
Hello there! My name is Célian Boyé, one of the PhD students working in the ZARATHUSTRA project. Let me tell you what I am currently working on, and explain the exciting results that we hope to get to soon. My thesis is about the...

New Publication!
Check out our new publication: Mario Merino, Judit Nuez and Eduardo Ahedo (2021): “Fluid-kinetic model of a propulsive magnetic nozzle“. Plasma Sources Science and Technology. Abstract A...

Meet Diego García Lahuerta: simulation of plasma flows in EPTs
Meet Diego García Lahuerta, PhD student in ZARATHUSTRA in charge of fluid simulations of EPTs

Entrevista a nuestro IP, Mario Merino, en Cienceando (AEAC)
Si quieres saber cómo funcionan los cohetes de plasma y cuáles son los objetivos del proyecto de nuestro proyecto, escucha la entrevista a nuestro IP, Mario Merino, realizada por la Asociación Española para el Avance de la Ciencia (AEAC)...

Non-linear Data Analysis applied to Plasma Space Propulsion
Clara Puerto Sánchez has defended her BSc thesis on Non-linear Data Analysis applied to Plasma Space Propulsion.

ZARATHUSTRA in UC3M news!
Read the recent press release about our project ZARATHUSTRA with an interview of the Principal Investigator, Mario Merino.

Seminars on Aerospace Science and Technology
Next week the first Seminar on the Aerospace Science and Technology series by the PhD in Aerospace program will take place. The seminars will be dedicated to the two ERC Starting Grants in the Aerospace department, and Mario Merino will...

Here we are!
Welcome to the new webpage of the ERC-ZARATHUSTRA project. While it is still under work, you can already find information about the project and the team using the menu at the top of the page. Enjoy!