AASC’s thruster with no moving parts, gases or liquids for U.S. Space Force • Spaceleaks

AASC was selected in 2020 by ASTRA to deliver a flight-ready version of their Metal Plasma Thruster (MPT) for ASTRA’s upcoming EWS Rapid Revisit Optical Cloud Imager (RROCI) Mission. The U.S. Space Force’s (USSF) Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) selected ASTRA to develop and demonstrate an Electro-Optical / Infrared (EO/IR) LEO-based cloud characterization solution (RROCI) that supports U.S. warfighter operations.

The flight-ready unit will build and integrate the 12U spacecraft bus to move the spacecraft from its injection orbit up to its operational orbit in the early mission phase. AASC thruster uses a solid metal propellant and a low (45V) voltage power processing unit, a technology matured with support from NASA via an SBIR contract.

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