NASA SBIR 2019-I Solicitation

Proposal Summary

PROPOSAL NUMBER:
 19-1- Z10.02-3947
SUBTOPIC TITLE:
 In-Space Electric Propulsion Component Technologies
PROPOSAL TITLE:
 Reliable Non-Swaged Cathode Heater Designs
SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Orbion Space Technology, Inc.
101 West Lakeview Drive
Houghton, MI 49931- 2274
(906) 370-2377

Principal Investigator (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)

Name:
Dr. Jason Makela
E-mail:
jason.makela@orbionspace.com
Address:
101 W. Lakeview Dr. Houghton, MI 49931 - 2274
Phone:
(906) 362-2509

Business Official (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)

Name:
Dr. Jason Makela
E-mail:
jason.makela@orbionspace.com
Address:
101 W. Lakeview Dr. Houghton, MI 49931 - 2274
Phone:
(906) 362-2509
Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) :
Begin: 3
End: 5
Technical Abstract (Limit 2000 characters, approximately 200 words)

To ensure high reliability, traditional cathode heaters undergo complex material inspections, challenging manufacturing ops, time-consuming thermal/cycle testing, onerous electrical testing, and difficult-to-assess X-ray inspections, and even after executing all of the aforementioned qualified/heritage procedures a high percentage of as-built heaters fail one of the many acceptance tests, which is costly financially, for scheduling, and from a human resource standpoint.  Orbion proposes to design, test, and trade three novel heater options to simplify manufacturability without sacrificing reliability.  Heater options include; 1) an integrated heater/insert using enabling/new refractory metal additive manufacturing (AM) technology, 2) an inductively heated (IH) insert which has historically been challenging due to electronics availability, and 3) an RF plasma heated insert that shares the historical electronics problem with IH tech that is no longer a problem due to the availability of space-rated integrated circuits with the appropriate frequency/power capabilities. 

To achieve manufacturability, reliability, and cost-savings, each proposed heater option has inherent advantages over the incumbent (swaged) heaters, including;

  • The AM option can be manufactured using refractory metals (and high temp alloys) while implementing on-the-fly automated layer-by-layer quality inspections and material property adjustments to ensure each part is produced within user-defined limits
  • The inductive heater option eliminates swaging processes altogether, focuses heater power where it is needed, and pushes failure modes away from cathode hardware and into power electronics, which are readily available for this application
  • The RF heater option may completely eliminate additional heater components in the cathode; heat is deposited locally via targeted plasma formation, and failure modes are moved away from hardware and into readily available power electronics
Potential NASA Applications (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)

The NASA applications for an innovative, reliable, manufacturable, easily inspectable heater design are far-reaching.  Many of the ongoing NASA in-space propulsion programs are only possible using EP systems thus many EP systems are currently under development, e.g. AEPS, NextSTEP, and NEXT-C, all of which require hollow cathodes that use swaged heaters.  The proposed efforts have the potential to serve as a risk reduction on-ramp for some of the aforementioned EP programs. 

Potential Non-NASA Applications (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)

The commercial market is expanding at an unprecedented rate.  The number of small sats being manufactured is far exceeding the expert projections that have been published over the past few years, and the projections showed 100s to 1000s of satellites being produced per year!  Nearly all satellites being manufactured will have an EP system to meet mission requirements, which need cathode heaters. 

Duration: 6
Form Generated on 06/16/2019 23:20:17