Satellites operating in Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) are severely limited by a continuous propulsion requirement for drag compensation. Using onboard propellants for propulsion inherently limits mission duration for such satellites. As such, propellant collection and acceleration via an air-breathing electric propulsion has been suggested as a means to maintain VLEO for extended periods. The operation thereof relies on the collection of inbound atmospheric particles. The current study computationally explores various passive inlet/collector geometries and approaches for improving particle collection using a particle-based flow solver with a Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) collision model. A maximum compression ratio of 150 was achieved with a particle collector exit number density of 6.1E+18 m-3 and pressure of 0.2 mTorr. Additionally, several other design parameters were designated to improve the overall collector efficiency.
