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.

CubeSats equipped with these propulsion systems can also help with the mitigation and remediation of space debris by avoiding collisions and removing themselves from orbit at end of life.

Joe Wells, Omnidea Ltd UK managing director, said: “This research project will be extremely valuable in determining specifications for an in-orbit demonstrator and an equivalent breadboard demonstrator that will be built and tested in laboratory vacuum conditions.

“More significantly, we see this as an ideal opportunity to enter and exploit the small satellite market as an early player. This type of propulsion system has previously never been used in space applications. The technology combines the advantages of traditional PPT including simplicity, reliability, lower cost and low power consumption, with improved performance, including higher specific impulse, impulse bit and energy efficiency.”