Propulsion

Propulsion

Propulsion is responsible for providing the physical capability to move the satellite, in orbit and/or attitude. Propulsion commonly refers to some sort of a thruster. Not every satellite will have similar needs for propulsion, thus the understanding of satellites’ required propulsive capabilities is vital to mission success.

The different missions each projects execute call for different propulsive systems. The propulsion system designed for MR SAT is a cold gas R–134a thruster system intended to provide three–axis translational orbital control and three–axis attitude control, and the thruster used on the M³ satellite is a multi-mode thruster system designed by Missouri S&T’s Aerospace Plasma Lab.

Pictured above is the thruster for our Nanosat-8 program, MR & MRS SAT.