How can iodine keep you online?
Earth orbit is increasingly populated by small telecommunication satellites. Novel systems such as orbital broadband internet rely on massive constellations of these machines, which must be manoeuvred into place in orbit using ion thrusters. Typically these engines run on xenon, an expensive fuel that requires pressurised containers and complex machinery to operate. The EU-funded iFACT project investigated the use of iodine as an alternative ion fuel. Iodine has a slew of advantages: it is cheap, solid at low temperatures, and contains three times the energy density of xenon. Heating the material with a simple electric system produces iodine gas which can be accelerated through an ion thruster to propel the satellite. The project has now been featured in the new CORDIS series of explanatory videos titled Make the Connection with EU Science. “We have developed and demonstrated key building blocks to foster the use of iodine as propellant for electric propulsion,” says project coordinator Franz Georg Hey. “Since 2020, three different iodine-fed thrusters have been built, with powers ranging from 10 to 1 000 W, and one has been successfully coupled with a CubeSat platform designed by Endurosat.” ‘Make the connection with EU-science’ is a series of explanatory videos focusing on the scientific content and exploitation aspects of EU research projects.
Keywords
iFACT, iodine, satellite, xenon, electric propulsion, plasma, hollow cathode, advanced cusp field thruster