Towards flight qualification of a 1 Newton hydrogen peroxide thruster

The design evolution of a 1 Newton High TestPeroxide monopropellant thruster is reported, alongwith results of tests carried out under sea-levelatmospheric and vacuum conditions. A new, off theshelf catalyst material was tested and incorporatedinto the thruster design. The final thruster designdemonstrated good overall performance with aspecific impulse of approximately 160 seconds beingachieved in vacuum. A case study suggests that thethruster would provide a level of performancecomparable to that of a hydrazine-based propulsionsystem for a high ΔV, low-mass, volume-constrainedLow Earth Orbit spacecraft mission, but at lower cost