Thrustme

Centre National De La Recherche Scientifique

Ecole Polytechnique

Dmytro Rafalskyi

Ane Aanesland

Javier Martinez Martinez

Elena Zorzoli Rossi

Stanislav Dudin

Javier MARTÍNEZ MARTÍNEZ

The invention relates to a solid or liquid propellant () tank () for a thruster, the tank () comprising means for forming a gas () in the tank, the tank () having an opening () of surface area S for the extraction of a flow () of the propellant gas from the tank (). According to the invention, the tank () comprises a propellant gas flow on-off control system comprising a grid () arranged opposite the opening () of the tank (), a first thermal regulation system () for heating the gas () in the tank and a second thermal regulation system () for heating the grid (), said grid () including holes of total surface area greater than the surface area S of the opening of the tank ().

Propellant tank with on-off control system for the flow of propellant gas and spacecraft incorporating such a control system

Disclosed is a space cold gas thruster operating with a solid propellant. The cold gas thruster includes a tank suitable for containing a solid propellant and a tank heating device suitable for sublimating the solid propellant and forming gaseous propellant, the tank having an aperture for transferring the gaseous propellant outside the tank, such as a nozzle. Also disclosed is a process for determining the amount of remaining propellant in the propellant tank of the disclosed cold gas thruster.

Cold gas thruster with solid propellant

Disclosed is a radio-frequency plasma generating system including a radio-frequency generator and a plasma source, the radio-frequency generator being inductively or capacitively coupled to the plasma source through a resonant electric circuit, the radio-frequency generator being adapted to receive direct current power from a direct current power supply and for generating radio-frequency power at a frequency f, the radio-frequency power including a reactive radio-frequency power oscillating in the resonant electric circuit and an active radio-frequency power absorbed by the plasma. The radio-frequency plasma generating system includes a unit for measuring an efficiency of conversion E of direct-current power to active radio-frequency power absorbed by the plasma and a unit for adjusting the frequency f as a function of the measured efficiency of conversion E to maintain the efficiency of conversion E in a predetermined range within a RF plasma operational range.

Radio-frequency plasma generating system and method for adjusting the same

The invention relates to an ion thruster, comprising:

Gridded ion thruster with integrated solid propellant

A device for forming a quasi-neutral ion-electron beam, including: a chamber; a set of means for forming an ion-electron plasma in the chamber; and means for extracting and accelerating charged particles from the plasma out of the chamber. The particles are capable of forming the beam and the extraction and acceleration means that include a set of at least two grids located at one end of the chamber.

Growing community of inventors

Orsay, France

Dmytro Rafalskyi