High-Impulse, Scalable, Metal Plasma Thruster for Cubesat Missions

In PhII, AASC matured a Metal Plasma Thruster (MPT) to TRL6. This thruster (www.aasc.space) has no moving parts, uses solid metal propellant, a <45V Power Processor Unit and requires a DC power input of only 7.3V - 23V from the spacecraft and a start/stop command. The on-board processor controls the firing sequence of the pulsed thruster for orbit raising/lowering or precise attitude control. A flight-ready unit has been integrated into ASTRA LLC’s 12U CubeSat for USSF’s EWS Rapid Revisit Optical Cloud Imager Mission, scheduled for launch in early 2022. The MPT would achieve TRL8. The MPT has passed vibration tests and has been fired in vacuum at ~33W to a total impulse of 2200Ns; the life test continues towards the design goal of 6000Ns for the 1.8kg (total) thruster. In this Project, AASC will: (1) make a scaled 4kg MPT for Artemis radiation tolerant for operation in deep space (assisted by space-qualified subcontractors with expertise); (2) make targeted redesigns of the MPT to improve mass-production quality, manufacturing throughput and reliability; (3) build a small production cell in which to develop and document unit assembly that would ultimately enable scalable production through contract manufacturing to meet larger quantity orders; (4) validate objectives 1 and 2: (a) for radiation tolerance, through design of increased redundancy of critical components and simulation of radiation events and system response; (b) for performance reproducibility, through long duration operation of multiple units in vacuum with data gathered on operational figures of merit; (5) verify protocols for reliable and reproducible manufacture, then deliver a flight-ready propulsion system for 12U missions in Lunar orbit with a manufacturing protocol that results in reproducible thrusters. If a constellation of N CubeSats is to fly in formation around the moon, our thrusters will be designed such that the Nth unit is close in performance to the first unit.

The primary NASA application for our MPT thruster is for the Artemis Program, which is a decade long effort. AASC is a self-funded company with zero outside investment, making it easy to form teaming arrangements in the post Sequentials phase to deliver hardware to Artemis. For larger Micro-sats (~50kg - 100kg), the arrays may be scaled to a larger array size that meets the impulse (Delta-V) requirements of other NASA deep space missions.

The product market fit of our MPT thruster is for both NASA deep space and commercial (VLEO and LEO) markets. The emphasis on manufacturability and reproducibility (the Nth unit performs like the first one) makes us more competitive in the commercial sphere. We have been approached by a private customer to deliver multiple units of our MPT to provide 20,000Ns of impulse in a <5kg package.

This is a mature technology (TRL 8) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.