Experimental Setup for H 2 /O 2 Small Thruster Evaluation

In the context of developing a propulsion system for small-scale space platforms, particularly CubeSats, currently treated as secondary payload, several challenges are raised by designing an experimental installation dedicated to testing a H2/O2 thruster. Starting from the research projects imposing the operational requirements for the propulsion system and the ofunctional requirements for the testing system, the paper presents the methods for sizing and calibrating the main pieces of equipment used for accurate and stable control of mass flow and mixture ratio, as well as a vacuum chamber computation predicting the evolution of parameters during tests. The conclusions and future work section is related to necessary adjustments for planning of an extensive test campaign able to characterize the performance and behaviour of the studied thruster.