Under this NASA and AFRL-supported CCRPP, Flight Works, Inc. is proposing to complete the development and flight-qualification of micropumps for small spacecraft propulsion systems, and to deliver flight units to NASA. NASA’s Lunar Flashlight (LF) mission, a CubeSat that will launch on Artemis-1, is the mission of record that will use the Flight Works Inc. micropump to generate the propellant feed pressure for the CubeSat “green” propulsion system. NASA MSFC, the lead center for the LF propulsion system, requires the first flight pumps in 2020 and plans to baseline the same micro-pump driven propulsion system for other missions, such as MoonBEAM and Far-side Lunar Comm Relay (FLCR). These micropumps enable these missions by providing a total impulse that would not be possible to achieve with conventional pressure-fed systems; they allow light conformal tanks to be used, remove pressurization systems, and allow more propellant to be loaded. This work builds on previous NASA and AFRL SBIR efforts, in which Flight Works Inc. has developed and tested several micropump designs for spacecraft propulsion systems with thrust ranging from sub-Newton to hundreds of Newtons, for conventional toxic propellants (hydrazine, mono-methyl-hydrazine, nitrogen tetroxide and monoxide mixtures MON-3/-25) as well as non-toxic monopropellants like AF-M315E (now called ASCENT) and LMP-103S. The objective of the CCRPP project is to increase the technology and manufacturing readiness levels (TRL and MRL) to 8 and 9, respectively, and reduce the cost for direct infusion of micro-pump subsystems into multiple commercial space platforms. The use of the pump technology in the Lunar Flashlight mission will make it TRL 9 upon completion of the mission.

The micropump-fed propulsion technology is applicable to all missions that can benefit from drastically increased orbital maneuvering capabilities, or that need low tank pressures at launch (such as some secondary payloads). It applies to CubeSat, microsat and nanosat missions which need “high” thrust and delta-V. It allows orbital deployment, orbit or constellation maintenance, and deorbit. For lunar and interplanetary spacecraft with high impulse needs, such as Lunar Flashlight, it enables new science missions.

The numerous commercial constellations of small spacecraft in development can all benefit from the lower cost and higher performance of the pump-fed propulsion technology for orbit deployment, maintenance and deorbit. It is also applicable to large commercial buses, DoD spacecraft and missiles including in Divert Attitude Control Systems, and for in-space propellant management/transfer.