SBIR-STTR Award

For strategic defense assets in space, an on-orbit propulsion capability is required which features high efficiency at a specific impulse of 1000-3000 seconds. This propulsion is required for orbit transfer, orbital maneuvering and station-keeping missions. The pulsed electrothermal (pet) thruster seems particularly attractive for these applications, and has previously approached the proposed performance levels with water propellant in thrust stand experiments. Much better performance can be achieved with liquid hydrogen, however. Proposed is the design and fabrications of a hydrogen-fueled thruster for laboratory use, with particular attention focused on the problem of minimizing hydrogen boil off during injection. The thruster will be tested in vacuum with gaseous hydrogen to measure the breakdown voltage, and using the test data, a capacitive pulse forming network will be designed. These tasks are designed to establish the technical feasibility of liquid hydrogen operation in a pulsed electrothermal thruster.