Omnidea developing plasma thruster propulsion for CubeSats

The new thruster is said to be the first of its kind to generate plasma at thermonuclear temperatures and densities. It will be used for moving and positioning deployed space assets in vacuum and low-pressure environments, and on assets ranging from low Earth Orbit spacecraft (200-500km altitude) to deep space exploration systems.

Omnidea also plans to incorporate this technology into a new generation of rocket engines for use in Very Low Earth Orbit satellites.

"Omnidea’s electronic propulsion capability will revolutionise the way that small spacecraft are deployed in space,” said Piyal Samara-Ratna, Space Park Leicester’s METEOR centre Principal Engineer.

The project will be funded by the £7.5m SPRINT (SPace Research and Innovation Network for Technology) programme.

According to SPRINT, the system works by generating a particular magnetic effect which results in a more tightly focused ion beam that gives higher performance compared to traditional Pulse Plasma Thruster (PPT) systems. This results in higher specific impulse performance and higher energy efficiency operation.