A cold gas micropropulsion system for attitude control, installed on the one liter nanosatellite URSA MAIOR, is described. The system uses nitrogen gas stored in a tank as a propellant, improving the specific impulse by heating the gas before it reaches the expansion nozzle. The most innovative components of the system are the microthrusters, manufactured on a few millimeters size silicon chip, which allows to obtain very low thrust levels at a high efficiency. The micropropulsion system design, integration and performance evaluation are discussed in the paper. The theoretical performance is compared with ground testing results, showing a very good agreement. The system can be scaled to the needs of different missions, giving thrusts ranging from 20 my N to 2mN.


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    Title :

    The nanosatellite URSA MAIOR micropropulsion system


    Contributors:
    Santoni, F. (author) / Manzoni, G. (author) / Miotti, P. (author) / De Grandis, F. (author) / Mosetti, G. (author) / Di Fabrizio, E. (author)


    Publication date :

    2003


    Size :

    6 Seiten, 8 Quellen



    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Print


    Language :

    English




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