ThrustMe is a deep tech company that designs miniaturized aerospace thrusters for small satellites, increasing the life of satellites and making them more affordable.[1][2]
ThrustMe was founded in 2017 by Ane Aanesland and Dmytro Rafalskyi, who previously worked at the École Polytechnique and CNRS as researchers in plasma physics and electric propulsion.[5] Initially, the startup was incubated in Agoranov.[6] Also in 2017, ThrustMe raised 1.7 million euros for its development.[7]
In 2018, ThrustMe received €2.4 million from the European Commission to commercialise electric propulsion for nanosatellites.[8]
In 2019, Ane Aanesland received the CNRS innovation medal for her entrepreneurial activities.[9] The same year, Spacety and ThrustMe maneuvered for the first time a satellite using iodine as propellant, with a cold-gas thruster.[10]
In 2021, ThrustMe, in partnership with Spacety, achieved the first in-orbit demonstration of an electric propulsion system powered by iodine.[3][11][12] The results were published as a research article in the journal Nature, where the maneuvers described resulted in a cumulative altitude change above 3 km.[13][14]
According to the European Space Agency, in regard to the use of iodine rather than Xenon in a gridded ion thruster, "This small but potentially disruptive innovation could help to clear the skies of space junk, by enabling tiny satellites to self-destruct cheaply and easily at the end of their missions, by steering themselves into the atmosphere where they would burn up."[15]
Flight missions
Ongoing
XiaoXiang 1-08 is a six-unit cubesat developed by Chinese satellite company Spacety. It carries ThrustMe's I2T5 non-pressurized cold gas thruster, the first in existence.[16]
BeiHangKongshi-1 is a 12-unit cubesat developed by Spacety. The satellite carries ThrustMe's NPT30-I2-1U, the first iodine electric propulsion system sent into space.[3] The cubesat was launched on board the Long March 6 on 6 November 2020.[17] According to Rafalskyi, advanced orbital maneuvers would be carried out to test the satellite's full capabilities.[18]
Hisea-1 is a 180-kilogram SAR minisatellite. It is the first generation of light, small SAR satellites developed by Spacety carrying a NPT30-I2-1U for orbit maintenance, collision avoidance, and end-of-life deorbiting.[19] It was launched on board a Long March 8 rocket on 22 December 2020 for ocean research.[20][21]
Announced
NorSat-TD is a microsatellite developed by the UTIAS Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) for the Norwegian space agency.[22] The satellite was [launched in 2023; earlier it was] scheduled to be launched in the first quarter of 2022.[23]
INSPIRESat-4/ARCADE is a 27U spacecraft built by NTU, Jülich Research Centre, LASP, IISST and NCU. The satellite aims to flight in the VLEO (Very Low Earth Orbit) region to make in-situ Ionospheric plasma measurements.[26] The thruster is expected to lower the orbit of the satellite to less than 300 km and enable the mission to survive at this altitude for a duration of 6 months or more. The launch is scheduled for 2022.[27]
^Rafalskyi, Dmytro; Martínez Martínez, Javier; Habl, Lui; Zorzoli Rossi, Elena; Proynov, Plamen; Boré, Antoine; Baret, Thomas; Poyet, Antoine; Lafleur, Trevor; Dudin, Stanislav; Aanesland, Ane (17 November 2021). "In-orbit demonstration of an iodine electric propulsion system". Nature. 599 (7885): 411–415. doi:10.1038/s41586-021-04015-y. PMC8599014. PMID34789903. Both atomic and molecular iodine ions are accelerated by high-voltage grids to generate thrust, and a highly collimated beam can be produced with substantial iodine dissociation.
