Research & Development

Micro Mono-Propellant Thruster

The relative simplicity of monopropellant thruster systems opens up a relative large niche market for their application. The usage of only one feed system is not only a driving factor in reducing system costs but also results in volume and mass savings which compensate their, compared to bipropellant systems, lower performance. Furthermore, reduced system complexity translates into higher reliability and operational logistic.

AIT is developing in cooperation with the European Space Agency a monopropellant thruster based on green propellant. The propellant (hydrogen peroxide 87.5%) is non-toxic and non-carcinogenic avoiding thereby the logistical complexity and high development and operational cost of comparable Hydrazine systems.

For thruster tests and performance evaluation AIT developed a test facility which allows thruster tests under atmospheric conditions. The test facility incorporates a high speed computerized data acquisition system and state of the art measurement technology. The test facility includes furthermore a thrust balance appropriate for the evaluation of thrust in the range of 5 to 5000 mN with an accuracy of ± 1.5 mN.

Based on an advanced design of monolithic catalysts, the present system achieves efficiencies between 95 and 99%. The thrust levels generated presently range between 150 mN and 900 mN with a specific vacuum impulse of more than 150 s. The large experience obtained by AIT with such systems however allows in the future a relative easy upscaling to higher thrust levels. Due to a detailed thermal design of the thruster it does not require and pre-heating system. This together with the negligible pressure drops across the catalyst (0.4 bar compared to 5-10 bar in comparable hydrazine thrusters) further simplifies the systems and increases its attractiveness for small satellites with their limited mass and power budget.

Envisioned application of the AIT monopropellant thruster includes among others fine-pointing (formation flight) for medium and large satellite and attitude control. Furthermore due to the usage of green propellants such a system is also regarded as a candidate for a future Mars landing. Only the usage of green propellants will ensure that the Mars environment will not be contaminated with toxic exhausts (e.g. Phoenix Mars Lander which uses hydrazine thrusters) or nitrogen. The latter is important to safely analyze the Martian soil for traces of biological activities where nitrogen is usually a by-product.

Recent Publications:

• Scharlemann, C., Schiebl, M., Amsüss, R., Tajmar, M., Miotti, P., Guraya, C., Seco, F., Kappenstein, C., Batonneau, Y., Brahmi, R., and Hunter, C., "Monopropellant Thruster Development: Investigation of Decomposition Inefficiencies", Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Green Propellants for Space Propulsion, Poitier, September 2006
  
  
• Scharlemann, C., Schiebl, M., Marhold, K., Tajmar, M., Miotti, P., Kappenstein, C., Batonneau, Y., Brahmi, R., and Hunter, C., "Development and Test of a Miniature Hydrogen Peroxide Monopropellant Thruster", AIAA Joint Propulsion Conference, AIAA-2006-4550, 2006