Single printed circuit board laser ablative thruster

Abstract

Thrust is a delicate aspect of today’s picosatellites. The options to generate thrust are sparse at best, which leads to trade-offs or, most of the times, discarding the option. Our group is developing a thruster concept based on laser ablative thrust generation. As of late, we elucidate the possibility of a down-scaled single PCB approach suitable to be fitted into a 1U satellite system. In our talk we will refer to typical restrictions and give a detailed description of our proposed electro-optical solutions. Finally, we will give a short overview of our current status in development and extrapolate the thrusters potential with respect to small satellites.