This week, SPL delivered four flight electrospray thruster units to NASA Marshall Space Flight Center as part of an ongoing collaboration for the Green Propulsion Dual Mode (GPDM) mission.
GPDM is a technology demonstration mission of a new multimode propulsion system onboard a 6U CubeSat, or a small spacecraft about the size of a briefcase. The new propulsion system features the MIT SPL electrospray thrusters and a chemical monopropellant thruster fed from a central, shared propellant supply. This technology aims to provide chemical and electric space propulsion — two modes of propulsion with very different but complementary performance — in a condensed volume suitable for CubeSats and other small spacecraft.
The electrospray thrusters delivered for GPDM are a modified version of the MIT SPL ion Electrospray Propulsion System (iEPS). Their design was informed by recent SPL research on electrospray performance with ASCENT monopropellant and can be fueled and re-fueled on orbit. For more information on the GPDM mission, visit our collaborators at Georgia Tech’s Space Systems Design Lab, or view NASA’s TechPort entry on the mission.
