1. Design and In-orbit Demonstration of REGULUS, an Iodine electric propulsion system
- Author
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Lorenzo Cappellini, Alessandro Barbato, Marco Manente, Nabil Souhair, Riccardo Mantellato, Mirko Magarotto, Marco Minute, Alessandro Schiavon, Fabio Trezzolani, Davide Scalzi, Elena Toson, Nicolas Bellomo, A. Selmo, Matteo Duzzi, Francesco Barato, Paola De Carlo, Fabiana Milza, Simone Di Fede, Devis Paulon, Daniele Pavarin, Bellomo N., Magarotto M., Manente M., Trezzolani F., Mantellato R., Cappellini L., Paulon D., Selmo A., Scalzi D., Minute M., Duzzi M., Barbato A., Schiavon A., Di Fede S., Souhair N., De Carlo P., Barato F., Milza F., Toson E., and Pavarin D.
- Subjects
010302 applied physics ,Propellant ,Physics ,Iodine propellant ,business.industry ,Plume analysis ,Aerospace Engineering ,Thrust ,Propulsion ,01 natural sciences ,010305 fluids & plasmas ,Plume analysi ,Regulus ,Electrically powered spacecraft propulsion ,Space and Planetary Science ,In-orbit Demonstration ,0103 physical sciences ,CubeSat ,Specific impulse ,Electronics ,Aerospace engineering ,CubeSat propulsion ,REGULUS ,business - Abstract
REGULUS is an Iodine-based electric propulsion system. It has been designed and manufactured at the Italian company Technology for Propulsion and Innovation SpA (T4i). REGULUS integrates the Magnetically Enhanced Plasma Thruster (MEPT) and its subsystems, namely electronics, fluidic, and thermo-structural in a volume of 1.5 U. The mass envelope is 2.5 kg, including propellant. REGULUS targets CubeSat platforms larger than 6 U and CubeSat carriers. A thrust T = 0.60 mN and a specific impulse Isp = 600 s are achieved with an input power of P = 50 W; the nominal total impulse is Itot = 3000 Ns. REGULUS has been integrated on-board of the UniSat-7 satellite and its In-orbit Demonstration (IoD) is currently ongoing. The principal topics addressed in this work are: (i) design of REGULUS, (ii) comparison of the propulsive performance obtained operating the MEPT with different propellants, namely Xenon and Iodine, (iii) qualification and acceptance tests, (iv) plume analysis, (v) the IoD.
- Published
- 2022