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HELSINKI – French startup ThrustMe has carried out the first in-orbit tests of an innovative electric propulsion system powered by iodine, proving its ability to modify the orbit of a CubeSat.
ThrustMe’s NPT30-I2-1U, the first electric iodine propulsion system sent into space, is aboard the Beihangkongshi-1, a 12U CubeSat developed by Chinese commercial satellite maker Spacety.
A long rocket from March 6 put the satellite into orbit in November, accompanying a batch of satellites for the Argentinian remote sensing company Satellogic.
After weeks of commissioning, the propulsion system was tested for two 90-minute burns in late December and early January. The burns resulted in a total elevation change of 700 meters according to a ThrustMe press release.
The companies say the results prove iodine is a viable propellant for electric propulsion systems and mark a step towards commercialization of the system.
In particular, the system could have an impact on space sustainability efforts. It allows a small satellite to lower its altitude, reduce its time in orbit, see the satellite burn as it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere, and help reduce space debris in lower Earth orbit.
The development comes as national space agencies and private companies plan the launch of so-called mega-stellations, each made up of hundreds or thousands of satellites.
In addition to accelerating deorbitation, the low-mass system also provides small satellites with propulsion capabilities to maintain orbits and avoid collisions.
Explosions caused by remaining fuel and batteries for satellites and rockets and collisions between spacecraft are major contributors to the growing problem of space debris.
the European Space Agency estimates that there were 34,000 pieces of debris over 10 centimeters in size and 900,000 pieces of 1 to 10 centimeters in orbit in January 2021. Traveling at several kilometers per second, even the smallest fragments can threaten spacecraft, including including the International Space Station.
ThrustMe claims that the use of iodine as a propellant is a breakthrough for the satellite industry. It enables the delivery of fully pre-filled propulsion systems to customers and significantly simplifies and streamlines the satellite integration process.
Conversely, most conventional electric propulsion systems use rare and expensive xenon or krypton which also requires high pressure storage. When heated, solid iodine turns into gas without going through a liquid phase.
“It has been a long road to bring this product from dream to reality. To get there, we had to innovate, develop a complex system from scratch, and perform basic research studies, because many properties of iodine are missing from scientific databases, ”says Dmytro Rafalskyi, CTO of ThrustMe.
ThrustMe CEO Ane Aanesland said News by e-mail that the company will be deliver systems to multiple customers this year.
“In addition to this, we are also preparing two in-orbit demonstrations of our 1.5U version which has an expected total pulse capacity of 9,500 Ns. The first to come in 2021 is a national space agency mission that we will announce later, ”said Aanesland.
Another demonstration will take place aboard the GOMspace GOMx-5 mission scheduled for the second quarter of 2022. The NPT30-I2-1U is also in preparation for the geostationary satellite (GEO) market.
ThrustMe is a spin-off of the École Polytechnique and the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). The company has also obtained support from ESA through its Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems (ARTES) program.
ThrustMe and Spacety, a private Chinese company established in 2016, have collaborated for the first time on 2019, with the I2T5 unpressurized cold gas thruster on board the Xiaoxiang-1 (08) CubeSat. This tested critical technologies for the storage, delivery, and sublimation of iodine.
Another larger NPT30 is on Hisea-1, a first miniature C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite for Spacety launched in December on the Long 8 March test flight.
Hisea-1 has already made its first images, with a resolution of three meters per pixel, using its tape mode, and also acquired one-meter resolution images in its projector mode or in fixed mode.
Spacety announced today that it has sent a 3 meter resolution image from an area of West Sulawesi province in Indonesia that was struck by a magnitude 6.2 earthquake on January 15 to relevant United Nations agencies to help relief efforts The image was submitted via the platform -national Earth observation data sharing form.
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