Posted on 08/12/2018 10:15:10 PM PDT by BenLurkin
What's unusual about the technology Stellar Exploration developed with Malin Space Science Systems of San Diego is its power, said Mike Loucks, president of Space Exploration Engineering, a Seattle company that specializes in cis-lunar, lunar and deep space missions. The new thruster fueled with hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide is designed to move a 12-unit cubesat, which weighs about 28 kilograms, at a speed of two kilometers per second.
"The miniaturized bi-prop system Stellar has developed suddenly allows cubesats to take on the missions normally associated with much larger and more expensive spacecraft," Loucks said by email. "None of the currently marketed propulsion systems for cubesats are even in the same ballpark. This is a serious, grown-up propulsion system based on well-known technology that allows microsatellites to bust out of the kiddy pool."
…
Stellar Exploration designed the new bi-propellant thruster with a low-pressure tank to ease range safety concerns. Compliance with launch safety regulations is inherent in the design, Svitek said.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Cis-lunar is a term that I have never heard before. And I have been an astronomy nerd for 50 years.
Bi-propellant is suspiciously unfamiliar as well.
Cis-lunar means not homo-lunar.
Bi-propellant.
Um.....
Hypergolic mixture which ignites as soon as the two components come in contact with each other.
Hypergolic mixture which ignites as soon as the two components come in contact with each other.
Oh yeah, talk dirty to me (° ͜ʖ°)
Long history of usages. German ME-163’s in WW-II used such a system for terrific acceleration in a small package. (I started to use the phrase “explosive acceleration,” which would have been appropriate some of the time!)
No ‘mo moon?
Thats gonna upset folk with priapal uranus complexes.
In chemistry the prefix cis- is the opposite of trans-. I’m assuming that since a “trans-neptunian object” is one that orbits beyond Neptune then a cis-lunar orbit would be one lower than the moon, which encompasses most satellites. But then why bother with the complication?
Cis-Lunar?
Did you just assume its orbit?
You monster!
Cis-lunar? bi-prop?
Sounds queer to me. Someone having a gay old time writing this one?
It’s an astrogation term, not necessarily astronomical.
I first read it in an otherwise layman’s-term-using book about the Apollo program, sometime in the mid-70s.
I was 8 at the time of Apollo 17.
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