Additively Manufactured 22N ASCENT Thruster

Today, there are no 22N green propulsion thrusters commercially available, which results in having to use less capable and more toxic solutions such as hydrazine thrusters. Hydrazine thrusters are much less capable and require expensive station-keeping heating of the propellant or it will freeze and damage the feed lines. Having to use heater power continuously severely limits the lifetime of the spacecraft. Performance of hydrazine thrusters are low which severely limits mission capability and spacecraft lifetime. Green thrusters using ASCENT are much more capable and do not require expensive station-keeping heating since the propellant has a much lower freezing point, which enables the spacecraft to lay dormant in orbit without wasting heater power ready to be used when needed without limited lifetime power consumption. Lead time for current COTS propulsion hardware is in the 18-24-month range. Hyperion will shorten this to less than 6 months which will ensure DOD to provide a rapid response and large capabilities towards any adversary's threat. Hyperion will develop an additively manufactured 22N ASCENT thruster which has about 1.5x the performance of a hydrazine thruster. The 22N thruster size is the second most sought after thruster after the 1N. It is needed mainly as an RCS thruster for large satellites and spacecrafts. It is a very capable thruster that can be used for orbit insertion, attitude control systems, or in applications where high thrust is needed for defensive or offensive purposes, e.g., when the spacecraft need to rapidly avoid incoming threats/debris or when the spacecraft in a controlled manor need to take out an adversary threat. Hyperion will in this project leverage its more than 20 years knowledge and experience in developing green propulsion thrusters. Hyperion will partner with Quadrus Corp. for the additive manufacturing processes and development.