Thruster

A thruster is a small propulsive device used by spacecraft and watercraft for station keeping, attitude control, in the reaction control system, or long duration low thrust acceleration.

Spacecraft thrusters

• Rocket engine, using exothermic chemical reactions of the propellant(s)
• Electrohydrodynamic thruster, using ionized air (only for use in an atmosphere)
• Electrostatic ion thruster, using high-voltage electrodes
• Ion thruster, using beams of ions accelerated electrically
• Hall effect thruster, a type of ion thruster
• Pulsed inductive thruster, a pulsed form of ion thruster
• Magnetoplasmadynamic thruster, electric propulsion using the Lorentz force
• Electrodeless plasma thruster, electric propulsion using ponderomotive force
• Pulsed plasma thruster, using current arced across a solid propellant

Marine thrusters

• Azimuth thruster, pod underneath a ship, instead of a propeller and rudder
• Bow thruster, on the bow of a ship

Others

• Thruster (surfing) is a surfboard fin design
• Shkadov thruster, hypothetical megascale reaction for moving a star
• Hurrying, also called 'coal thrusting', a 19th century profession
• Big Mother Thruster
• Plasma Thruster