PPTCUP (Pulsed Plasma Thruster for CUbesat Propulsion) customer oriented develoment

在过去的几年里，火星空间有限公司和克莱德空间有限公司已经开发、认证并向客户销售了第一批用于立方体卫星应用的电力推进（EP）子系统，称为PPTCUP。目前，PPTCUP是唯一通过飞行鉴定的立方体EP子系统。然而，自从该产品的开发开始以来，立方体卫星市场已经显著发展成为商业现实，地球观测（EO）立方体卫星吸引了超过1亿美元的投资，两家大公司占总市场的40%左右。该项目的目标是修改现有的PPTCUP设计，以提高其性能，并获得为这些客户量身定制的产品，占领EO立方体卫星市场的重要份额，并为立方体卫星推进制定标准。为了实现这一目标，火星航天公司和克莱德航天公司正在与卫星应用弹射器和谢菲尔德大学先进制造中心（高价值制造弹射器的一部分）合作，利用他们在立方体卫星市场和先进制造技术方面的专业知识和经验。

In the past years Mars Space Ltd and Clyde Space Ltd have developed, qualified and sold to customers the first units of an electric propulsion (EP) subsystem for cubesat applications called PPTCUP. At present PPTCUP is the only cubesat EP subsystem to have been subjected to flight qualification. Nevertheless, since the development of this product started, the cubesat market has significantly evolved becoming a commercial reality with Earth Observation (EO) cubesats attracting investments in excess of 100 M$ and with two big companies representing about 40% of the total market. The goal of this project will be to modify the existing PPTCUP design to increase its performances and to obtain a product that is tailor made for these customers capturing a significant share of the EO cubesat market and setting the standard for cubesat propulsion. To achieve such a goal Mars Space and Clyde Space are collaborating with the Satellite Application Catapult and the Advanced Manufacturing Centre of the University of Sheffield (part of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult) to leverage their know-how and experience in the cubesat market and in advanced manufacturing technologies.