Abstract: The gas heating of microhollow cathode discharge (MHCD) is found to have a strong relation with overall discharge behavior in the experimental investigation. It provides crucial understanding to support the application and preliminary design of MHCD thruster. The thruster produced by this kind of propulsion system is predicted in the range of several tens to several thousands μN and the specific impulse is evaluated on the order of 600～1 000 N·s/kg using argon or on the order of 3000 N·s/kg using helium as the propellant gas respectively. The main performance of the MHCD thruster proves that MHCD can be applied as a new microplasma propulsion system for attitude control and station keeping of nano-satellites.