Development of a CubeSat-Scale Green Monopropellant Propulsion System for NASA's Lunar Flashlight Mission
Author(s)
Huggins, Grayson
Talaksi, Ali
Andrews, Dawn
Cavender, Daniel P.
Diaz, Carlos
McQueen, Donald
Williams, Hunter
Baker, John
Kowalkowski, Matthew
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Abstract
NASA’s Lunar Flashlight is a low-cost 6U CubeSat whose mission is to search for ice and
mineral deposits inside of the scattered craters at Moon’s southern pole. To conduct its primary
science mission, Lunar Flashlight must be placed in a stable lunar polar orbit which requires
the utilization of an on-board propulsion system. However, to this date, most CubeSats have
been propelled by cold-gas or electric propulsion systems that have proven to scale well but
lack sufficient impulse to conduct large _+ maneuvers such as orbit insertions. To this end,
the Lunar Flashlight mission has chosen to utilize a custom-designed green monopropellant
propulsion system developed by the Georgia Institute of Technology under the leadership of
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and support from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The
developed system is capable of providing more than the required propulsive capability for full
mission success while fitting inside of a 2.5U volume and weighing less than six kilograms. The
system utilizes the Advanced Spacecraft Energetic Non Toxic (ASCENT) green monopropellant
that provides higher specific impulse compared to traditional hydrazine while also being safer
to handle. If successful, the presented propulsion system will enable Lunar Flashlight to be
the first CubeSat to reach the Moon, the first to conduct an orbit insertion, and will be the first
CubeSat demonstration of the ASCENT propellant.
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Date
2021-01
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Text
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Paper
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