Dr. Kim, whose commendable career includes the creation of a plasma thruster design for the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, is on an ambitious mission.
TIL Falcon 9 uses plasma thrusters. (I’m reasonably confident it does not.)
Did the author mean the hall-effect thrusters used on Starlink?
Not entirely unrelated. Solar panels have to be manufactured somewhere, and I’m pretty sure China currently the top producer.