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MIT Validates Single Green Fuel to Power Both Chemical and Electrospray Thrusters

A shared ASCENT tank lets small satellites choose fast chemical burns or slow electrospray pushes to expand mission reach.

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MIT engineers just collapsed the oldest tradeoff in satellite propulsion — one tank, two thrusters, and a quiet rewrite of how cubesats are designed
A solar electric propulsion Hall Effect thruster being tested under vacuum conditions at NASA. Image Credit: NASA

Overview

  • On June 10, MIT published peer-reviewed lab results showing ASCENT, a non-toxic ionic-liquid monopropellant, powered electrospray thrusters continuously for up to about 100 hours with performance matching conventional ionic liquids.
  • NASA’s Green Propulsion Dual Mode (GPDM) cubesat is in integration with a planned in-space demonstration and a launch targeted no earlier than November to test a single ASCENT tank feeding one chemical thruster and four electrospray units.
  • MIT has supplied four flight electrospray thrusters for GPDM and Rubicon Space Systems delivered the chemical propulsion hardware now being integrated by NASA, confirming the project has moved from lab tests to flight hardware delivery.
  • Electrospray thrusters use an electric field to expel charged ions in a low, very efficient thrust ideal for slow, long-duration maneuvers while chemical thrusters deliver short, high-thrust impulses, and a shared tank removes the need for duplicate fuel systems on small satellites.
  • ASCENT was developed as a less-hazardous substitute for hydrazine and has flown previously in the AF-M315E form on NASA tests, and researchers say a successful GPDM demo could enable longer or deeper CubeSat missions such as slow transfers to Mars or the asteroid belt.