  Factors limiting the operating lifetime of Compact Surface Plasma Sources
(CSPS) are analyzed and possible treatments for lifetime enhancement are
considered. Noiseless discharges with lower gas and cesium densities are
produced in experiments with modified discharge cells. With these discharge
cells it is possible to increase the emission aperture and extract the same
beam with a lower discharge current and with correspondingly increased source
lifetime. A design of an advanced CSPS is presented.
