Flight Demonstration of FEEP on Get Away Special

Primarily intended for verification of the thruster design and assessment of actual performance, the FEEP thruster flight demonstration (EMITS - Electrical MIcrothruster Test in Space) is aimed at building confidence in this new technology among the potential commercial and scientific users. EMITS will exploit an existing ESA-NASA agreement for the utilization of the Get Away Special (GAS) facility to fly a package including two thrusters of different thrust levels (30 μN and 1 mN), the thruster power and control electronics unit, a computerized experiment control and data storage unit, and a battery. The main goal of the experiment is the verification of in-orbit ion beam production, neutralization and throttling. Other goals include ion beam shape investigation and monitoring of propellant deposition on the nearby surfaces. This paper presents the EMITS configuration and goals and outlines the experiment main features