Abstract: Air breathing electric propulsion technology is such a technology which produce thrust by collecting,com-pressing,ionizing and accelerating the gas in the spacecraft orbit,this technology is of milestone significance as for the spacecraft power.Lanzhou Institute of Physics has done a lot of research work for about ten yeas in this field.This paper introduces the progress of the air breathing electric propulsion technology in Lanzhou Institute of Physics up to date mainly including the scheme and the application analysis of the air breathing electric propulsion system.Based on the theoretical and numerical calculation,the gas gathering and compressing technology and electric propulsion technology were studied.The ground experimental results and subsequent studing plan are also given.The obtained results indicate that the scheme of the air breathing electric propulsion system proposed by Lanzhou Institute of Physics is able to satisfy the requirement of the damp compensation for the spacecraft flying in earth orbit of about 250 km height.