IL-FEEP: a Simplified, Low Cost Electric Thruster for Micro- and Nano-Satellites

The limited mass and volume available make the development of advanced miniaturized propulsion systems a challenge. An advanced version of the Field Emission Electric Propulsion system, namely the Ionic Liquid Field Emission Electric Propulsion (IL-FEEP) thruster, is presented in this paper to equip small platforms with a thruster subsystem able of providing a total impulse of the order of 2 kNs. The thruster prototype design and the main performance assessed by means of vacuum lab experiments are presented. The complete subsystem is sketched and a strawman 2U Cubesat platform is designed to include such a thruster. From the mass and power budget and the analysis of a number of relevant scenarios it results that, thanks to the IL-FEEP system, such platform can increase its lifetime by years, its LEO altitude by hundreds of km and its inclination by several degrees. The platform may board a set of standard payload equipments, as sensors and cameras. In brief, it is shown that the electric thruster presented is actually a valuable tool to increase the versatility and extend the range of applications of tiny spacecraft