A φ 0.8 mm micro-solid propellant rocket array thruster for simple attitude control of a 10 kg class micro-spacecraft was tested in vacuum. The micro-thruster uses boron/potassium nitrate propellant (NAB), because NAB has ignition temperature as low as 500 • C, and easily start to burn in vacuum. For a half of the rockets, an ignition aid (RK) was also loaded. Ignition was succeeded in vacuum with NAB + RK and NAB. The maximum impulse thrust of 4.6 × 10 −4 Ns, which is approximately a half of our requirement, was obtained with NAB. Compared to NAB, NAB + RK generated lower impulse thrust. The success rate of ignition was as low as 30%, although RK was used. These results suggest that RK has no benefit for the ignition of NAB, and other kinds of ignition aid should be found. Keywords: micro-propulsion, micro-thruster, solid propellant, impulse thrust, ignition aid, MEMS. Classification: Micro-electromechanical systems
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