{"id":485994,"date":"2018-06-12T10:50:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-12T14:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?guid=2089f489a10c23c18fa563fcb7848665"},"modified":"2018-06-12T10:50:00","modified_gmt":"2018-06-12T14:50:00","slug":"cubesat-micro-pulsed-plasma-thruster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=485994","title":{"rendered":"CubeSat micro-pulsed plasma thruster"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/images\/2018\/06\/cubesat_micro-pulsed_plasma_thruster\/17547408-8-eng-GB\/CubeSat_micro-pulsed_plasma_thruster_small.jpg\" width=\"170\" height=\"96\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"8\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\nThis micro-pulsed plasma thruster has been designed for propulsion of miniature CubeSats; its first firing is seen here.&nbsp;The thruster works by pulsing a lightning-like electric arc between two electrodes. This vaporizes the thruster propellant into charged plasma, which is then accelerated in the electromagnetic field set up between the electrodes.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nDeveloped for ESA by <a href=\"https:\/\/mars-space.co.uk\/\">Mars Space Ltd<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clyde.space\/\">Clyde Space<\/a> of the UK with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.southampton.ac.uk\/engineering\/research\/groups\/astro.page\">Southampton University<\/a>, this 2 Watt, 42 Newton-second impulse plasma thruster has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/Our_Activities\/Space_Engineering_Technology\/Shaping_the_Future\/Qualification_of_a_Micro_Pulsed_Plasma_Thruster_PPTCUP_for_Cubesat_Application\">qualified for space<\/a>, with more than a million firing pulses demonstrated during testing.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nIt has been designed for a range of uses, including drag compensation in low orbits, orbit maintenance, formation flying and small orbit transfers. <a href=\"https:\/\/mars-space.co.uk\/ppt\">The thruster<\/a> could also serve as a CubeSat deorbiting device, gradually reducing orbital altitude until atmospheric re-entry is achieved.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAbout the size of a DVD reader, the thruster weighs just 280 grams including its propellant load and drive electronics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This micro-pulsed plasma thruster has been designed for propulsion of miniature CubeSats; its first firing is seen here.&nbsp;The thruster works by pulsing a lightning-like electric arc between two electrodes. This vaporizes the thruster pr&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-485994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-multimedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=485994"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":485997,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485994\/revisions\/485997"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=485994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=485994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=485994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}