Champaign-Urbana Aerospace (CUA) proposes the fabrication and qualification of a flight-ready 6U CubeSat having two distinct NASA SBIR-funded TRL 5-6 CUA micropropulsion systems to be launched for in-space operations and qualification testing. The Fiber-fed Pulsed Plasma Thruster (FPPT) and Monofilament Vaporization Propulsion (MVP) are innovative thruster technologies developed by CUA that are at the tipping point and require in-space qualification testing to reduce risk and validate performance for customers while raising these new polymer-based propellant systems to TRL 7 or higher. The proposed Dual PropulsionExperiment (DUPLEX) 6U CubeSat will accomplish these goals. FPPT and MVP are viewed as CUA’s strongest competing micropropulsion products due to their high performance, low cost, and complete lack of concerns with range safety (no pressure vessel, non-toxic propellant, and triple inhibits on each thruster system). The proposed DUPLEX CubeSat program will build and qualify a complete flight ready 6U CubeSat with one FPPT and one MVP propulsion system on opposing sides of the 6U configuration. DUPLEX will be delivered to NanoRacks for launch and deployment. The ensuing on-orbit mission operations will take the FPPT and MVP propulsion systems to TRL 8 or 9. NASA STMD Tipping Point funding will support the design, fabrication, acceptance/qualification testing, and launch of the DUPLEX spacecraft. All additional pre- and post-launch operations costs will be supported by CUA at no additional cost to NASA. This proposed SBIR Phase II-E funding will support additional FPPT research and development to (i) reduce risk by performing electro-magnetic interference (EMI) measurements, and (ii) test three thrust vectoring concepts to provide the FPPT +/-10 degrees of steering that will enable FPPT to desaturate reaction wheels for deep space missions.

With the demonstrated high performance of CUA's FPPT (Isp>2400 seconds) and its innovative propellant feed and storage system, FPPT technology dramatically outperforms previous state of the art PPT systems, as well as most newer technologies. With an anticipated 5,000 N-s total impulse from a 1U system and 20,000 N-s from a 1.5U system, large orbit transfers, cis-lunar missions, and even inclination changes of 10s of degrees are now available to nanosatellites. Further, range safety concerns of most propulsion systems are eliminated with FPPT.

Commercial interest in nano-/small-satellites continues to grow, and it is important that these satellites have access to propulsion for increased capability and to extend on-orbit asset time. The FPPT provides a compact, light-weight, non-hazardous, high volumetric impulse propulsion solution available in a family of sizes to meet the differing mission user needs in DOD/industry/academia.