67th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics Session: Poster Session III: Low Temperature Plasmas, MFE: Conventional tokamaks: DIII-D, JET, TCV, AUG, HL-2A; BEAMS, Self-organized configurations: FRCs, RFPs, Spheromak, Pinches; Magnetic Mirrors Format: POSTER Helicity Space is developing a fusion-based thruster concept which aims to magnetically compress pre-heated Taylor-State plasmas toward fusion conditions [1]. The thruster incorporates a magnetic nozzle that traps the target plasma and, like a Laval nozzle, has a compression and expansion section. The nozzle coils are connected as a transmission line with varying inductance and constant capacitance [2]. Sending two well-timed current pulses into the nozzle results in a traveling magnetic mirror that peristaltically compresses the trapped plasma to thermonuclear conditions. The expansion section reverses the process to cool the exhaust and generate thrust, with the possibility of mixing with cooler and denser plasma to adjust thrust and specific impulse. The nozzle has been successfully tested to high-power (20 kV charge voltage and 3 kA peak instantaneous current) and fully integrated into the ECLAIR experiment for operation with the plasma [3]. We present the following results: (i) B-dot measurements of magnetic field propagation along the nozzle and matching analytical and numerical calculations; (ii) the status of attempts to visualize the evolution of the magnetic flux surfaces with a thermionic emitter [4]; (iii) results from 3D MHD simulations of four jets entering the nozzle to show how the timing of the jets with the nozzle fields affect plasma stability; (iv) measurements of ion temperature and plasma density using multi-chord interferometry and multi-chord ion doppler spectroscopy [5]. [1] S. You, AIAA Propulsion & Energy, AIAA-2020-3835 (2020) [2] P. M. Bellan, Phys. Rev. Lett. 43, 858 (1979) [3] Poster by S. Pree, et al. [4] Poster by N. Marin, et al. [5] Poster by S. Murray, et al. • Allyson M Sellner (University of Wisconsin - Madison, Helicity Space) • Allyson M Sellner (University of Wisconsin - Madison, Helicity Space) • Natalija Marin (UMBC and Helicity Space, University of Maryland Baltimore County and Helicity Space) • Seth Pree (Helicity Space) • Shane Murray (Helicity Space) • Brandon Lazard (Helicity Space, University of California, Los Angeles) • Carlos A Romero-Talamas (University of Maryland Baltimore County) • Paul Murray Bellan (Caltech) • Setthivoine You (Helicity Space)