Development of Electrothermal Pulsed Plasma Thruster Systems onboard Osaka Institute of Technology PROITERES Nano-Satellites

Abstract

The Project of Osaka Institute of Technology Electric-Rocket-Engine onboard Small Space Ship (PROITERES) was started at Osaka Institute of Technology (OIT) in 2007. In PROITERES, a nano-satellite with electrothermal pulsed plasma thrusters (PPTs) was successfully launched by the Indian PSLV C-21 launcher on September 9th, 2012. The main mission is to achieve powered flight of a nano-satellite by an electric thruster and to observe Kansai district in Japan with a high-resolution camera. The PPT performance in the 1st PROITERES reached 5.0 Ns with no miss-firing. Furthermore, the project of the 2nd PROITERES was started in 2010. The 2nd PROITERES satellite aims at powered flight with longer distance, i.e. changing 200-400 km in altitude on near-earth orbits, than that of the 1st PROITERES. We are developing high-power and high-total-impulse PPT systems. In this paper, we introduce the research and development of PPT systems for PROITERES satellite series at OIT.