Patent — available for licensing
Sublimable Propellant Source for Iodine-fed Ion Propulsion System
A NASA invention available to explore as a licensing opportunity.
About this technology
Overview
NASAs Marshall Research Center has developed a system for generating iodine vapor from solid iodine, for use as a propellant in a Hall or ion thruster propulsion system. Xenon has generally been the preferred propellant of choice for these spacecraft ion propulsion systems, but more recently iodine-based systems have gained significant attention due to comparable performance to xenon, and the system-level advantages of low storage pressure and higher storage density with more propellant per unit volume. However the solid iodine, in comparison to gaseous xenon, must be sublimated into a vapor for ionization, and a heat source must be used to increase the sublimation rate of the solid iodine to a level that is useful for propulsive purposes. The subject innovation is a spring-loaded mechanism to optimize the contact of the solid iodine with the heated structure in the zero-gravity environment of space.