Precision Electrospray Thruster Assembly (PETA)

New low cost, low volume, low power, rugged electrospray thrusters will be ideal as actuators for precision thrusting, if provided with precision high voltage power supplies. The small thrusters show minimum thrusts of 1.2 nanoNewton, and thrusts scalable in a wide range to hundreds of microNewtons, with an ISp of 3500 sec. We propose in Phase I to develop, test and characterize with electrospray thrusters a high-precision high-voltage power supply optimized for fine control of the thrusters, and designed to support accurate formation flying of space telescope elements, and precision alignment and stabilization of space platforms. The Phase I HV supply design will be developed in Phase II into a cubesat format Precision Electrospray Thruster Assembly including thrusters, and ready for flight tests. At the end of Phase II PETA units will be provided as protoflight avionics to be flown, tested and qualified.

PETA is also applicable to missions from other US government agencies, and for fine thrust control of commercial satellites. Accurate formation flying facilitated by PETA opens new areas of observation of interest to different agencies.

PETA will be applicable to NASA projects requiring precision thrusting for accurate and stable sensor pointing, accurate flight formations or precise alignment and orientation of systems or free-flying subsystems. There are applications for space interferometric observatories such as MAXIM, for gravitational waves detectors such as LISA, for geodetic "free falling" observatories and for large telescopes with free flying mirrors or focal plane arrays. PETA also applies to cubesat and nanosat experiments, opening new opportunities for well controlled clusters of sensors, automatized rendezvous and assembly of large structure from small modules.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 4) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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