High thrust / high specific impulse electric propulsion systems

High thrust and high specific impulse electrc propulsion systems have significant potential to deliver substantial improvements in propulsive performance over the current state-of-the-art. Several advances in this direction have been achieved by the ACT in collaboration with leading European Universities.

Nuclear fusion propulsion systems

In an effort to address the current limitations, in terms of mission capability, of today's propulsion technologies there is a great deal of work being performed both in Europe and around the world on alternative methods of propulsion. One concept which is still at a relatively early stage of development is the direct use of energy from fusion reactions to drive a spacecraft.

"Propellantless" propulsion

Finding the best way to thrust without spending any propellant would represent a big step in the developments of propulsions systems and enable new missions. Several advances in this direction have been achieved by the ACT in collaboration with leading European Universities.

Novel Earth-to-orbit transportation systems

Finding the best way to transfer a spacecraft from the Earth surface is generally a very complex problem. Apart from conventional rocket systems, many other transfer systems has been proposed. Same examples are: laser lifters, laser thermal systems propulsion, space elevators, electromagnetic railgun launch, etc.

Advanced micropropulsion systems

Recent trends in the space community for smaller, cheaper and more frequent space missions are driving the development of micro- and nano-spacecraft. The use of small spacecraft constellations can then enhance the overall performance of communication and remote sensing tasks currently done by a relatively small number of large platforms. Nano-satellites (with mass between 1 and 10 kg) and pico-satellites (with mass of less than 1 kg) impose significant limitations on mass, power and volume available for all subsystems, including propulsion. In general, micro-propulsion devices will need to be more efficiently packaged than conventional systems in order to comply with the tight constraints. Several studies are ongoing for assesssing innovative micropropulsion systems.

Chemical propulsion systems

What can we do to improve chemical propulsion systems? Have they reach a level of maturity for which it is only possible possible to further develop existing chemical propulsion systems?
Research is ongoing in order to answer these questions and envisage the introduction of innovative solutions.

Advanced propulsion Mission

Mission concepts exploiting advanced propulsion currently under internal study within ACT. The predicted performances of promising propulsion systems are used as inputs to advanced mission concept studies and mission-level trade-off analyses in order to quantify improvements in mission-level performance, optimize at system-level and with other subsystems (e.g. power), and match the range of mission applications which would most benefit from the technology development.