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ThrustMe announces today that the renovation of a 900 m2 building has started to turn it into a lean and smart manufacturing site to support high volume production of its groundbreaking propulsion systems. After ThrustMe made the world’s first demonstration of a revolutionary iodine-propellant based electric propulsion system, the company has witnessed a significant market traction. The new facility will, as a first step, have a production capacity of no less than 365 propulsion systems per year.

ThrustMe has been awarded an ESA GSTP contract to develop and qualify the electric propulsion system NPT30-I2-1.5U. With its ground-breaking solution for satellite constellations, ThrustMe technology will integrate the ambitious GomSpace lead technology demonstration GOMX-5 mission. The GOMX-5 satellite will be equipped with several advanced payloads, and ThrustMe will provide the manoeuvrability for orbit raising and end-of-life disposal.

The French Government Space Agency, CNES, awarded ThrustMe its SME label for the space qualified iodine propulsion system NPT30-I2. This revolutionary and exceptional system was the first ever to be tested in space and is still the only propulsion system on the commercial market to use iodine propellant. CNES evaluated ThrustMe’s product according to several criteria with a strong focus on product excellence.

With growing space industry demand, and the rise of satellite mega-constellations, a viable alternative to conventional xenon propellant is necessary to ensure a sustainable space industry. Today, Ane Aanesland, Dmytro Rafalskyi and Javier Martínez Martínez won the European Physical Society Plasma Physics Innovation Prize for the technological, industrial and societal applications of research in plasma physics through their pioneering development of iodine-fueled plasma-based electric propulsion systems for satellites.

ThrustMe has successfully tested an iodine-fuelled electric propulsion system in space and results of this historic demonstration have been published today in one of the leading scientific journals, Nature. These results confirm for the first time that iodine is not only a viable alternative to conventional xenon propellant, but that it also enables extreme propulsion system miniaturization. This provides small satellites with new maneuvering and space exploration potential, and critical new collision avoidance and deorbiting capabilities that will prove vital for the long-term sustainability of the space industry.

ThrustMe has signed a research agreement with the Research School of Physics at the Australian National University (ANU) to study new electrothermal plasma systems and alternative propellants for space applications including spacecraft propulsion, simulation of low-Earth-orbit environments and future in-situ resource utilization. The plasma systems also have important ground-based industrial applications related to material processing and waste gas disposal.