Design, analysis and fabrication of a vaporizing liquid micro-thruster

Abstract

The design and fabrication of a newly proposed vaporizing liquid micro-thruster concept i s described. The intended purpose of this thruster concept is for use as an attitude control device o n new generations of very small spacecraft envisioned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), ranging in mass between 1-20 kg. The vaporizing liquid micro-thruster concept heavily relies on microfabrication techniques to achieve order of magnitude reductions i n both size and weight to fit the design limits of the envisioned microspacecraft. Attention was focused on thermal design aspects to limit power requirements, requiring specially contoured substrate shapes and packaging of the thruster chip. Since the thruster concept consists of a bonded structure and will be pressurized internally, bond strength tests were performed. Anodic bonds strengths were found to be more than sufficient to maintain the current design internal pressures of 340 kPa. Several chips were fabricated and are currently awaiting performance testing.