NASA’s Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator to use water as fuel spacenewsfeed.com

NASA’s Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator PTD-1, will split the water into hydrogen and oxygen in space and burn them in a small rocket engine for thrust.

PTD-1 will prove that these propulsion systems are feasible for CubeSats with the first demonstration of a water-based electrolysis spacecraft propulsion system in space.

The idea of electrolysis is to apply an electric current through water to chemically separate water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen gases. To generate the electric current, the CubeSat is equipped with solar arrays.

Among the advantages, water is non-toxic and stable, easy to handle and cheaper to obtain.

The propulsion system, named Hydros, was developed by Tethers Unlimited, Inc., in Bothell, Washington. This technology was initially developed under a NASA Small Business Innovation Research contract and then matured under a NASA Tipping Point partnership. The PTD spacecraft bus was developed by Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Inc., in Irvine, California. Tyvak is also performing payload integration and operations for the PTD-1 mission.

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