Flight Model Development and Ground Demonstration of Water Resistojet Propulsion System for CubeSats

Abstract

The University of Tokyo has proposed a water resistojet thruster with a high certainty of liquid–vapor separation and low power consumption. In this propulsion system, liquid water is periodically vaporized in a pulsating manner to generate thrust. A vaporization chamber with a labyrinth-shaped flow path catches droplets using their surface tension to separate the liquid and vapor, and the droplets vaporize under normal temperature to reduce the input power by reusing the heat from the surrounding components. In this study, we designed and fabricated a flight model of the proposed propulsion system for 6U CubeSat and evaluated the performance of this propulsion system, including the control method. The results confirm the concept of the proposed liquid–vapor separation method and its low power consumption. Moreover, we revealed the relationships between the vaporizing duty cycle, input power, and thrust.