Design, Construction and Performance Evaluation of a Cold Gas Thruster Test Stand

Abstract

The cold gas thruster is one of the significant components of a satellite and its application possesses a marked impact on the entire system performance. The nonlinear function and order of magnitude, lead to increasing the importance of thruster function. Therefore, pre-mission performance assessment has a considerable effect on the risk reduction of space missions. In this article, an uncomplicated and efficient pendulum scheme for development and implementation of a Thruster Test Stand (TTS), to measure the thrust produced at the end of the nozzle is proposed. The TTS is capable of measuring thrust levels in the range of 0.1Newtons to 3N with operating frequencies up to 50 Hz which is used by various satellite ranges. The experimental results demonstrate that although the designed device is less sophisticated than other test devices, it is capable of measuring the produced thrust very precisely and with less than 15mN.

Keywords

• cold gas thruster
• test stand
• nozzle
• satellite mission
• measurement