Newly developed tank system for small spacecraft thruster

Abstract

New thruster system using less toxic fuel, which vapor pressure is relatively low, has been developed for small or micro size spacecraft, which has less space or weight budget, etc. In this system, the tank store the fuel in liquid state, the thruster system ejects the fuel in gas state using vapor pressure to obtain thrust. This means high energy efficiency and the constant thrust level maintained right before fuel exhausted, compared to the widely used cold gas thruster. To achieve that the thruster system separate the fuel into gas phase from liquid phase, the tank has porous metal inside itself. The porous metal absorbs the liquid state fuel and only gas state fuel can pass through the porous metal. And having the porous metal inside the tank, the thruster system can reduce the effect of sloshing, and the heater control can be achieved easily because of the enhancement of the thermal conductivity. Furthermore, the surface area is drastically increased, so vaporization occurs everywhere in ejecting the fuel, which keeps the constant thrust level. This paper presents the experimental result of this gas-liquid equilibrium thruster. And it is shown that this tank system has the effectiveness mentioned above. Show more