Regeneratively Cooled Multiple-Use Plug Hybrid for Nanosatellites

Abstract

The multiple-use plug hybrid for nanosatellites prototype thruster is being developed to fill a niche application for nanosat scale spacecraft propulsion. The prototype thruster uses safe-handling and inexpensive nitrous oxide and acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene as propellants. The thruster system provides attitude control using secondary-injection thrust vectoring and allows large-impulse and small-impulse attitude control and proximity burns to be performed with the same system. To ensure survivability during extended duration burns, the multiple-use plug hybrid for nanosatellites incorporates a novel regenerative cooling design in which the nitrous oxide oxidizer flows through a cooling path embedded in the aerospike nozzle, before being injected into the combustion chamber near the nozzle base. Digital manufacturing was used to fabricate the nozzle components. Fused deposition modeling was used to fabricate the solid fuel grain from the acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene thermoplastic. When fully developed, the multiple-use plug hybrid for nanosatellites thruster could provide an enhanced propulsive capability that would enable multiple nanosatellites to be independently repositioned after deployment from the parent launch vehicle. Because the environmentally benign propellants are mixed only within the combustion chamber after ignition, the system is inherently safe and can be piggybacked on a secondary payload with very little overall mission risk increase to the primary payload.