• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • News
  • Featured
  • More News ⌄
    • SatNews
    • SatMagazine
    • MilSatMagazine
  • Events ⌄
    • MilSat Symposium
    • SmallSat Symposium
    • Satellite Innovation
  • Contacts
  • SUBSCRIPTION

SmallSat News

You are here: Home / News / AASC’s Metal Plasma Thruster Selected By ASTRA LLC For RROCI Mission

AASC’s Metal Plasma Thruster Selected By ASTRA LLC For RROCI Mission

February 8, 2021 by editorial

AASC is proud to announce that in August of 2020, the company was selected by ASTRA LLC to deliver a flight-ready version of the firm’s Metal Plasma Thruster (MPT) for ASTRA’s EWS Rapid Revisit Optical Cloud Imager (RROCI) Mission, scheduled for launch in early 2022.

The U.S. Space Force‘s (USSF) Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) has selected ASTRA, LLC to develop and demonstrate an Electro-Optical / Infrared (EO/IR), LEO-based, cloud characterization solution (RROCI) that supports U.S. warfighter operations. RROCI is currently funded through launch readiness.

AASC is proud to support this project as a provider of a compact, reliable electric propulsion thruster with no moving parts, using solid metal propellant and a low voltage power processing unit. The scalable MPT configurations are described in www.aasc.space.

A flight ready unit will be delivered to Pumpkin Labs who has been selected by ASTRA to build and integrate the 12U spacecraft bus. The AASC MPT will raise the 12U spacecraft from its injection orbit up to its operational orbit in the early mission phase, provide attitude adjustments throughout the mission and finally maneuver the craft down to a lower orbit for burn-up at the end of the mission.

AASC has matured the MPT thruster with recent support from NASA via an SBIR contract. Direct thrust measurements made at NASA on a sensitive pendulum thrust stand confirm the predictions based on plasma parameters in the thruster.

AASC has the capability to manufacture the MPT line with short lead times and at a relatively low cost compared to other electric propulsion solutions.

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

WEEKLY NEWSLETTER

Archives

  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019

© 2019–2023 SatNews

x
Sign Up Now!

Enjoy a free weekly newsletter with recent headlines from the global SmallSat industry.

Invalid email address
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Thanks for subscribing! You will now receive weekly SmallSat News updates.
We love our advertisers.
And you will too!

Please disable Ad Blocker to continue... We promise to keep it unobtrusive.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Thanks for subscribing! Please check your email for further instructions.