CubeSat Ambipolar Thruster (CAT) Diagram – Credit University of Michigan
Benjamin Longmier KF5KMP and James Cutler KF6RFX of the University of Michigan have launched a Kickstarter to raise funding to develop a CubeSat Ambipolar Thruster (CAT).
CubeSat Ambipolar Thruster (CAT)
The project’s Kickstarter page says:
Space exploration has traditionally been expensive, many spacecraft launched today are the size of a truck and can cost over $1 billion dollars. CAT will be tested on a CubeSat, a small satellite the size of a loaf of bread. CubeSats cost 1,000 to 10,000 times less to develop and launch than conventional satellites. As scientific and commercial space technologies get exponentially smaller, it becomes easier (and less expensive) to place small but powerful sensors on a CubeSat platform. The CAT engine can propel this miniaturized equipment to exciting new locations previously unreachable at such a low price.
Traditional university research funding starts with seed data, a small seed grant, a government grant and a large number of gates to go through over many years. We’d like to leverage Kickstarter funds to compress that timeline and go from initial seed data to flight in about 18 months, a much faster time scale than is possible with traditional grants. We love the idea of “Citizen Explorers” helping fund this project and are excited to have our backers be part of the journey.
James Cutler KF6RFX and Benjamin Longmier KF5KMP
While we have obtained some external funding, this mission may never happen without your help. Research funding is notoriously slow and filled with red tape. Technology demonstration missions can take over ten years to go from concept to launch. We want to do more faster, getting CAT from the drawing board to space in record time. With your help, we will be assembling everything into one compact thruster unit and testing integrated components in the lab, then in Earth orbit. If we reach stretch goals, we could be testing CAT in interplanetary space at a destination of your choice!
Our base funding goal of $50,000 is enough to add specialized equipment to the satellite to observe the plasma plume ejected by the CAT engine. Integrating a high-resolution camera and associated subsystems is critical to validate our theories on plasma flow along a magnetic nozzle and complete our test matrix when CAT is on-orbit. Because this is an entirely new type of engine, we need a camera in order to directly observe how the super heated plasma follows the magnetic nozzle and then detaches to create thrust. Without a camera we can’t know precisely when the plasma is being created. Basically, we need to see the engine actually creating plasma to verify our assumptions. On Earth it’s easy for us to observe the plasma during testing, but in space it’s much more difficult.
Watch CAT: Launch a Water-Propelled Satellite into Deep Space
Kickstarter http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/longmier/cat-launch-a-water-propelled-satellite-into-deep-s
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/GoBluePlasma
Read a New Scientist story at
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24679-boxy-cubesats-get-a-propulsion-boost-in-new-space-race.html
AMSAT-UK 
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