The design and implementation of an experimental micropropulsion system, under development jointly by Mechatronic and INFM, is described. The flight experiment will be performed on-board the microsatellite UNISAT-2, in the framework of a cooperation between University di Roma "La Sapienza", Mechatronic and INFM. The main goal of the experiment is to have a preliminary assessment of the microthruster performance in orbit. The thruster configuration for the UNISAT-2 experiment is cold-gas, using pressurized nitrogen (N/sub 2/). The micro convergent-divergent nozzles, obtained by a 500 /spl mu/m thickness silicon wafer, have a throat area of about 300 /spl mu/m/sup 2/ through which the pressurized gas flow is accelerated. Ground tests performed to evaluate the microthruster performance are described, showing that the maximum thrust is of the order of 500 /spl mu/N. Two pairs of microthrusters are mounted with their thrust direction orthogonal to the spin-axis of the UNISAT-2 spacecraft, and are used to perform spin-up/spin-down maneuvers. Measuring the satellite spin rate variation, after thruster activation, the average thrust is evaluated.


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    Title :

    Micropropulsion experiment on UNISAT-2


    Contributors:
    Santoni, F. (author) / Tortora, P. (author) / Graziani, F. (author) / Manzoni, G. (author) / De Fabrizio, E. (author) / Vaccari, L. (author)


    Publication date :

    2002-01-01


    Size :

    1674445 byte




    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



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