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258 MEMS and Microstructures in Aerospace Applications

TABLE 11.8
Cold Gas MiPS System Characteristics

Value Units Description
95 cc Propellant volume
0.556 g/cc Propellant density (liquid)
2028 sccm Isobutane thruster flow rate (40 psia)
0.01 sec Minimum pulse duration
65 sec Specific impulse I sp
55 mN Thrust at 40 psia
1000 g MEPSI spacecraft mass
53 g Propellant mass
616 sec Total thrust duration
34 N-sec Total impulse
34 m/sec Total delta V
0.55 mN-sec Minimum impulse bit
61564 Max no. of minimum impulse bit firings

promising approach appears to be ChEMSe technology, which is used for VAC-
CO’s cold gas systems. Using this technology eliminates tubing connections in
favor of a single ChEMS manifold, so that the gas tank becomes the only ‘‘non-
integrated’’ part. A summary of the cold gas thruster (example VACCO MIPs) is
shown in Table 11.8, with a picture of the assembled thruster produced by VACCO
in Figure 11.19.

FIGURE 11.19 Cold gas thruster system. (Source: VACCO.)

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