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High-Impulse, Modular, 3D-Printed CubeSat Electrospray Thrusters Throttleable via Pressure and Voltage Control
Hyeonseok Kim1, Luis Fernando Velásquez-García2
1Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.
Advanced Science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany)
|February 11, 2025
Summary
Novel 3D-printed electrospray thruster arrays for CubeSats show promising results. Additive manufacturing enables simplified, efficient micropropulsion systems with tunable thrust control for small spacecraft.
Area of Science:
- Aerospace Engineering
- Materials Science
- Physics
Background:
- CubeSats require compact and efficient propulsion systems.
- Electrospray thrusters offer a potential solution for micropropulsion.
- Additive manufacturing presents opportunities for novel thruster designs.
Purpose of the Study:
- To demonstrate the proof-of-concept for additively manufactured, droplet-emitting electrospray emitter arrays.
- To investigate the performance and control methods for these novel CubeSat thrusters.
Main Methods:
- Utilized digital light processing and two-photon polymerization for multiscale feature fabrication.
- Designed microfluidic channels with 50 µm diameters for uniform operation.
- Tested modular thruster arrays (up to 8 modules, 4 emitters each) in a vacuum environment.
Main Results:
- Achieved stable and uniform electrospray emission with near 100% transmission.
- Observed a square root relationship between current and flow rate, and a linear relationship between current and voltage.
- Demonstrated thrust control via pressure (flow rate) and voltage modulation.
Conclusions:
- Additive manufacturing is a viable technology for producing electrospray propulsion hardware.
- Voltage control offers a simpler and wider-throttling alternative to pressure control for thrust modulation.
- The developed thrusters show performance comparable or superior to existing droplet-emitting electrospray systems.
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