Low temperature co-fired ceramic vaporizing liquid microthruster for microspacecraft applications

Low temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) technology is successfully employed for the first time to develop a vaporizing liquid propellant microthruster (VLM). The VLM has potential applications as micropropulsion system for attitude control of microsatellites. The design, fabrication and testing of the LTCC based VLM are presented. Preliminary testing is done by using water as liquid propellant. The VLM of nozzle throat size 220 μm × 200 μm produces an average thrust in the range of 34–68 μN for a flow rate of 1 mg s−1 with an input heater power varying from 7.1–9.2 W. An average specific impulse of 3.4–6.9 s is measured. An average impulse bit of 0.67–1.4 mNs, 3.40–6.70 mNs is measured for thruster firing time of 20 s and 100 s during VLM stable mode operation at sea level conditions.

► LTCC technology is used for the first time to fabricate the vaporizing liquid microthruster.
► Vaporization testing procedure has been proposed to find the power requirement of the thruster.
► Thrust, inlet pressure and temperature are measured simultaneously in real time and analyzed.
► Impulse bit and specific impulse are obtained.
► Impulse bit obtained for thruster firing of 20 s is enough for attitude control of microsatellites.