To study the plume effects in the vacuum area, the Direct Simulation Monte Carlo(DSMC) method is usually adopted because the plume field usually contains the entire range of flow regime from the near-continuum in the vicinity of nozzle exit through transitional state to free molecular at far field region from the nozzle. The objective of this study is to investigate the behaviors of a small monopropellant thruster plume in the vacuum area numerically using DSMC method. To deduce accurate results efficiently, the preconditioned scheme is introduced to calculate continuum flow fields inside thruster to predict nozzle exit properties used for inlet conditions of DSMC method. By combining these two methods, the vacuum flow characteristics of plume such as strong nonequilibrium near nozzle exit, large back flow area, etc, can be investigated.