Abstract: In recent years, in order to meet the needs of space missions such as deep space exploration, manned spaceflight and onorbit service of spacecraft, the highpower electric propulsion technology with high thrust, high specific impulse, long lifetime and high thrust density has attracted the continuous attention of many scholars. Compared with other types of high power electric propulsion technologies, Electrodeless Lorentz Force (ELF) has obvious advantages in thrust density, thrusttoweight ratio and overcomes the restriction of electrode erosion on the lifetime of high power electric thrusts. According to the research status of high power electric propulsion equipment, this paper compares the similarities and differences of the technical approaches in the development process of the ELF thruster, introduces the development of each component in detail, analyzes the problems encountered in the research process, and puts forward the key research directions of ELF thrusters in the future.

Key words: high power electric propulsion, field reversed configuration plasma, ELF thruster, rotating magnetic field