Research and Development of Osaka Institute of Technology PROITERES Nano-Satellite Series with Electric Rocket Engines

The Project of Osaka Institute of Technology Electric-Rocket-Engine onboard Small Space Ship (PROITERES) was started at Osaka Institute of Technology (OIT) in 2007. In PROITERES, a nano-satellite with electrothermal pulsed plasma thrusters (PPTs) was successfully launched by Indian PSLV C-21 launcher on September 9th, 2012. The main mission is powered flight of a nano-satellite by an electric thruster. The PPT performance in the 1st PROITERES satellite is confirmed to reach 5.0 Ns with no miss- firing by the ground experiments. Just now, the 1st PROITERES satellite is under operation; that is, the special FM command of PPT firing is transmitted to the satellite from the ground station at OIT. Furthermore, the project of 2nd PROITERES was started in 2010. The 2nd PROITERES satellite is a practical satellite with 50 kg and 500-mm cube; 60 W for earth observation. The 2nd PROITERES satellite has a special performance of powered flight with longer distance, i.e. changing 200-400 km in altitude on near-earth orbits, than that of the 1st PROITERES. We are developing high-power and high-total- impulse PPT systems for the 2nd PROITERES. The 3rd satellite of PROITERES is a 50-kg moon-exploration satellite with a cylindrical-type Hall thruster system for powered flight from the low earth orbit to the moon orbit. In this paper, we introduce the research and development of PROITERES satellite series and specially electric thrusters onboard them at OIT.