SBIR-STTR Award

The objective of this proposal is to develop and test an advanced micro pulsed plasmathruster suitable for TechSat21, with substantially higher energy and propellant efficiency than current designs, resulting in correspondingly higher operational performance (i.e. thrust and specific impulse). The purposed thruster will be coaxial and 1/20th the size of current models. With this geometry change and scaling down of the thruster there is a corresponding decrease in the mass and volume of the support electronics. Lower mass of propulsion system allows more mass in payload or reduced lauch cost.Enables the use of repositionable satellites less than 5kg.

Keywords:
Microthruster, Micronewton, Ppt, Microsatellite, Nanosatellite, Extremely Low Mass

The objective of this proposal is to develop a micro pulsed plasma thruster (micro-PPT), or even a family of micro-PPTs, with substantially reduced system mass. Secondary objectives are higher thrust, improved propellant efficiencies, and scalability across a wider range of operating energies, compared to current PPT designs. PPTs operating at pulse energies of 10-20 Joules have been used for small spacecraft propulsion for several decades, but due to extremely low thrust and propulsive inefficiency have been used only where the simplicity of their solid-state design outweighs all other concerns. Recent work has demonstrated the requirement for an improved PPT system massing less than 800 grams for the first of these proposed missions, TechSat 21

Keywords:
Micro Propulsion, Plused Plasma Thruster , Micro Satelites