I-Corps: Solid-state Flow-controlled Electric Thruster System for Small Satellites

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种配备了新型固态推进技术的小型卫星巴士，以便能够使用小得多的卫星向客户提供遥感数据，这些卫星的大规模部署成本要低得多。卫星是向国防、农业、能源和其他广泛市场的各种最终用户提供地球观测数据的重要供应商。从根本上说，这些数据的频率和延迟取决于卫星下行链路的可用性。这意味着较低轨道的卫星，或更多较高轨道的卫星，可以向终端用户提供更频繁的“新”数据。立方体卫星，即鞋盒大小的卫星，如果能够长时间(超过1年)保持轨道，就可以提供比大型卫星更大的覆盖范围和更好的数据频率，而且成本更低。为了延长寿命，需要开发一种配备推进装置的立方体卫星巴士，用于轨道遥感。这项技术的潜在影响是针对全球卫星市场和卫星数据的下游终端用户，尽管在生物医学和微流体市场也可能有其他应用。i-Corps项目基于开发用于CubeSats的全固态、流量控制、电推进器系统。这类卫星通常只在轨道上运行一年左右，由于缺乏推进能力和轨道寿命限制，很少用于商业空间应用。核心技术是一种固态流量控制设备，开发的目的是提供与目前许多更大的商业卫星上使用的更大的压力驱动机械推进系统相同的流体控制和精度水平。研究、开发了一种数字微流控装置，并在实验室环境中进行了测试，以证实其可行性。这项技术提供了在真空环境中重复地向电喷雾推进器流动和停止液体推进剂流动的能力，而不需要更大的压力系统或机械阀门，最大限度地减少了以前对卫星的缩放限制的影响。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a small satellite bus equipped with novel solid-state propulsion technology to enable provision of remote sensing data to customers using much smaller satellites that are significantly less costly to deploy in large numbers. Satellites are a crucial provider of Earth observational data to various end users across defense, agriculture, energy, and other broad markets. Fundamentally, the frequency and latency of this data depends on the rate of downlink availability of the satellites. This means satellites in lower orbits, or many more satellites in higher orbits, can provide more frequent “new” data to end users. CubeSats, or satellites about the size of a shoebox, could provide more coverage and better data frequency than larger satellites for lower cost if they are able to maintain their orbits for long durations (greater than 1 year). This longevity requires a propulsion-equipped CubeSat bus to be developed for use in orbital remote sensing. The potential impacts of this technology are targeted towards the global satellite market and the downstream end-users of satellite data though there may be additional applications in biomedical and microfluidic markets as well.This I-Corps project is based on the development of an entirely solid-state, flow-controlled, electric thruster system for use in CubeSats. This class of satellite is typically only in orbit for about a year and is rarely utilized for commercial space applications due to lack of propulsion capabilities and orbital limitations on lifetime. The core technology is a solid-state flow control device developed to offer the same level of fluid control and precision as is available on much larger, pressure-driven mechanical propulsion systems currently used on many much larger commercial satellites. A digital microfluidic device has been researched, developed, and tested in a lab environment to confirm feasibility. This technology offers the ability to repeatably flow and stop flow of liquid propellants to electrospray thrusters in a vacuum environment without the need for much larger pressure systems or mechanical valves, minimizing the impact of previous scaling limitations for satellites.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.