Newly developed tank system for small spacecraft thruster

Paper number

IAC-08.B4.5.10

Author

Dr. Takayuki Yamamoto, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Japan

Coauthor

Dr. Osamu Mori, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Japan

Coauthor

Dr. Junichiro Kawaguchi, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Japan

Year

2008

Abstract

We developed the new thruster system for small spacecraft, the gas-liquid equilibrium thruster. At this moment, it is difficult for small or micro size spacecraft to have thruster system, because of its small space, small weight budget, small electric power resources, and fuel toxicity and so on. But in this newly developed thruster system, we can choose less toxic fuel, which vapor pressure is relatively low. This means easy handling, relatively light weight tank and pipe system. In this system, the tank store the fuel in liquid state, the thruster system ejects the fuel in gas state using vapor pressure to obtain thrust. This means high energy efficiency and the constant thrust level  maintained right before fuel exhausted, compared to the widely used cold gas thruster. 
It is important that the thruster system can separate the fuel into gas phase from liquid phase. To achieve this separation, the tank has porous metal inside itself. The porous metal absorbs the liquid state fuel and only gas state fuel can pass through the porous metal. And having the porous metal inside the tank, the thruster system can reduce the effect of sloshing, and the heater control can be achieved easily because of the enhancement of the thermal conductivity. Furthermore, the surface area is drastically increased, so vaporization occurs everywhere in ejecting the fuel, which keeps the constant thrust level. If there are no porous metal inside the tank, the boiling occurs in ejecting the fuel and affects the thrust level.
This paper presents the experimental result of this gas-liquid equilibrium thruster. And it is shown that this tank system has the effectiveness mentioned above. 

Abstract document

IAC-08.B4.5.10.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-08.B4.5.10.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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