Micropropulsion

Abstract

Micropropulsion is a relatively new area involving a drastic reduction of thruster size and mass. This is mainly due to two reasons:

• (i) Computer and microstructure manufacturing is making dramatic advances, many spacecraft components such as science payloads (camera, sensor, etc.) or on-board computers can be therefore significantly reduced in size. This has enabled a new generation of microsatellites, which can be launched at much lower costs. Alternatively, many microsatellites can be launched at one time and the risk of failure can be distributed between them. Also new microsatellite formation scenarios e.g. for future Mars missions, are presently under evaluation. All these new spacecraft need propulsion systems that are also reduced in size and mass.

• (ii) Micropropulsion technology can reduce the thrust to mass ratio, and in some cases the power to thrust ratio. Therefore many of them in parallel can achieve the same thrust as “normal” propulsion devices, but at a reduced mass and maybe power requirement. This improves the mass ratio in Tsiolkovski’s equation, and increases the Δυ capability of the spacecraft.