Research on space thruster design based on ammonium dinitramide with electrical ignition

Currently, the liquid attitude orbit control power engine is an important part of the space propulsion system, and its function is to provide direct control of orbit and attitude for spacecraft, which is an important technical guarantee for the space thruster system to achieve attitude and orbit adjustment. Ammonium dinitramide (ADN-based) engines that have been tested and verified in orbit use propellants to catalyze and decompose in a preheated catalytic bed, and then start to burn to generate thrust. The thruster of the catalytic decomposition technology route have a series of disadvantages, including high combustion temperature can easily lead to catalyst inactivation, which affects the life of ADN-based engines. The catalytic bed requires a long warm-up time before the engine starts, so fast engine start-up is not possible. In this paper, we propose a novel ADN-based space engine prototype developed based on electric ignition technology is the initial devise in the world to realize the development of ADN-based space engine prototype based on electric ignition, which provides a novel green non-toxic high-performance liquid attitude orbit control power engine for the spacecraft power system, and lays an important foundation for the application of ADN-based liquid propellant in high-thrust space engines.