| Electric propulsion (PPT, MPD, etc.) Two-Staged Micro-PPT for Satellites Micro Pulsed Plasma Thruster, μPPT for three-axis attitude control of nanosatellites has been developed. The first prototype of the μPPT , which is actually reproduction of Dr. John Schilling's thruster at AFRL, Air Force Research Laboratory was performed successfully on October 4, 2010 at ITU Control & Avionics Laboratory. A video and a picture of the Micro-PPT firing are now avaliable.
A picture of μPPT during firing
A video of μPPT during firing Miniaturized Micro-PPT for Cubesats and Nanosats It is obvious that the micro-ppt of Dr. John Schilling is unnecessarily heavy, each package weighs more than 250 grams, to be deployed on a 1U cubesat. The capacitors and high voltage converter, which are the heaviest components, was altered with very lighter ones. Besides,the mass of electrodes was reduced by using electrolytic process.
Before and after electrolysis
The miniaturized μPPT
The miniaturized μPPT together with the packaged μPPT
The miniaturized μPPT firing in night-time. Micro-Newton Dynamic Thrust Measurement Stand In order to confirm Dr. John Schilling's thrust measurements and to assess thrust level of miniaturized μPPT, a thrust stand similar to the one in a study of Dr. Kevin Kremeyer from PM&AM Research was designed and manufactured. Eddy current sensor which has nanometer resolution, will be used instead of capacitive gage due to some reasons not mentioned here.
An picture of the thrust stand Eddy current sensor was tested by utilizing an oscilloscope right before of the µPPT thrust measurement A video of the sensor functionality experiment
A single pulse thrust measurement result |
