Development of a solid propellant microthruster with chamber and nozzle etched on a wafer surface

Abstract

The development of a novel solid propellant microthruster is presented. The solid propellant microthruster is an excellent micropropulsion system for high-accuracy station keeping, attitude control, speed adjustment, gravitation compensation and orbit adjustment of microspacecraft. The design and fabrication using microfabrication technologies for the microthruster are demonstrated. Moreover, the experiments for microcombustion and thrust testing are described in detail. Initial tests, using gunpowder and potassium perchlorate as the main components of the solid propellant, have produced 9.11 × 10−5–1.52 × 10−4 N ⋅ s of total impulse at sea level.