Development of advance micropropulsion system fot cubesats and nanosats

The use of CubeSats or nanosats is increasing in the space industry. These are inexpensive and easily
disposable satellites when compared to conventional satellites. These CubeSats or nanosats can orbit
in constellation formation can be used for several short-term missions like military spy applications or
weather data gathering. Although they seem to be very pragmatic both technically and economically
there exist a limitation of keeping them in desired orbit or movement of these Cubesats or nanosats
about any of their axis. This limitation directly affects satellite productivity and capability of performing
various tasks. These limits can be overcome by the implementation and development of micro-propulsion
systems. The implementation and deployment of a micro-propulsion system include the fabrication of
micro or nano-sized nozzles, fuel or thrust generating source and a control unit. The source for thrust
can range from water to several complex fuels such as inert gases (in cold gas thrusters). A self-oxidizing
fuel with low or controlled calorific value and energy output is preferred. There must be at least 3 micro-
propulsion nozzles in a CubeSat or nanosat so that movement can be done about any of the 3 axes.
Various parameters for different fuels are analysed in this paper like ease of storage, density of fuel to be
carried, thrust per unit mass of different fuel and complexity of injection system