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Médaille de l’innovation 2019 du CNRS, la chercheuse, co-fondatrice de la start-up française ThrustMe, a inventé un moteur révolutionnaire pour les nanosatellites.

French propulsion startup ThrustMe unexpectedly made it into orbit early this month with its innovative propulsion system placed aboard a Chinese cubesat.

ThrustMe has announced that the first propulsive operations have been conducted, and this milestone occurring just 15 days after the successful launch of the first ever, iodine-propelled smallsat.

BREMEN, Germany – ThrustMe reported success in initial on-orbit testing of an iodine-fueled cubesat thruster at the Space Tech Expo Europe here.

“It all operates as expected but we cannot give you data on the performance because we have just thrusted a little bit,” ThrustMe CEO Ane Aanesland told SpaceNews.

A privately-owned Chinese satellite company founded in 2016 is expanding its product line as it continues in-orbit technology demonstrations. The firm, with 70 employees working in Changsha and Beijing, has nine missions and 15 satellites in orbit. Feng Yang, CEO and founder, talked with SpaceNews about his plans for small synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites and the origins of the company at the Space Tech Expo Europe.

ThrustMe has launched the first ever iodine-propelled satellite. The satellite was sent into space by a Long March 4B (CZ-4B) carrier rocket from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in China's Shanxi Province, on 3 November 2019 at 11:22AM (Beijing time). The 6U satellite includes a propulsion system developed and built by ThrustMe. Known as the I2T5, this propulsion system uses a first-of-its-kind, non-pressurized, cold gas thruster fuelled by solid iodine. Designed with CubeSats in mind, the I2T5 will help ensure a sustainable space industry by extending the lifetime of satellite missions, and enabling collision avoidance maneuvers. In the future, ThrustMe’s other iodine based, electric propulsion systems, will additionally enable orbital changes, constellation phasing, and orbit maintenance.