Our 0.1N thrusters are on NASA's Lunar Flashlight 6U spacecraft, which launched in December 2022. We recently continued qualification testing of the 0.1N thruster. To date, it has demonstrated over 3.1 kg throughput, over 17 hours of accumulated firing time, and over 65,000 pulses. Duty cycles have ranged from 10 – 90% in pulse mode, with pulse trains as long as an hour at nominal operating conditions. The longest single pulse was 101 minutes at normal operating pressures and thrust. After all of this testing, there are no signs of performance degradation. Our next milestone is 5 kgs throughput, 100,000 pulses, and 25 hours of firing time.
| ATTRIBUTE | 0.1N Thruster |
|---|---|
| TRL | 8 |
| Thrust Range | 30 - 280 mN |
| Specific Impulse | 215 s (steady state) 235 s (pulse mode) |
| Heater Power | 7 - 9 W |
| Throughput | 3.1 kg |
| Acc. Burn Time | 17 hours |
| Acc. Pulses | > 60,000 |
| MIB | < 1.6 mNs |
| Mass | 58 g |