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

I-Corps：小型卫星的固态流量控制电动推进器系统

• 批准号: 2403794
• 负责人: Paulo Lozano
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-02-01 至 2025-01-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2403794&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Solid; state; Flow; controlled

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.

该 I-Corps 项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种配备新型固态推进技术的小型卫星总线，以便能够使用更小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。卫星是国防、农业、能源和其他广泛市场的各种最终用户的重要提供者，这些数据的频率和延迟取决于卫星的下行链路可用性。在较低的轨道或更高轨道上的更多卫星可以向最终用户提供更频繁的“新”数据。立方体卫星或鞋盒大小的卫星可以以更低的成本提供比更大的卫星更大的覆盖范围和更好的数据频率。能够长期维持其轨道（超过 1 年），需要开发配备推进装置的 CubeSat 总线，用于轨道遥感。该技术的潜在影响针对全球卫星市场和。卫星数据的下游最终用户，尽管在生物医学和微流体市场中也可能有其他应用。这个 I-Corps 项目基于开发用于 CubeSats 的全固态、流量控制、电动推进器系统此类卫星通常仅在轨道运行约一年，由于缺乏推进能力和轨道寿命限制，很少用于商业太空应用，其核心技术是为提供相同水平而开发的固态流量控制装置。流体控制和数字微流体装置已经在实验室环境中进行了研究、开发和测试，以确认该技术具有可重复性的能力。在真空环境中使液体推进剂流动和停止流动到电喷雾推进器，而不需要更大的压力系统或机械阀门，从而最大限度地减少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，并被认为值得通过以下方式获得支持：使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估。