It has recently come to my attention that Amazon’s Project Kuiper mega-constellation is looking heavily into ILIS ionic liquid ion source electrospray thrusters as a propulsion candidate for its satellites. You can see reference to propulsion speculation here at the … Continued
Continuing from the reveal of the Io Series thrusters, today we will look at the first of two core systems of the design – the integrated valveless iodine fuel delivery. Iodine is touted as a very promising yet highly advanced … Continued
I am excited to reveal the initial designs for the newest series of low-cost advanced EP from AIS – the Io Series thrusters! The Io Series consists of two tech classes – RF gridded ion and RF plasma, sharing a … Continued
It’s been a long wait, but they are finally in! Presenting the first batch of custom machined porous glass emitters for the AIS-ILIS1 ionic liquid electrospray thruster! These are probably the coolest parts I have received, all for my most … Continued
Last week I had a great time with Jay and the Jaynky team on the Jaynky to the Max Podcast as a guest speaker! The Jaynky Discord is a very active area that hosts a great collection of DIY and … Continued
The support and generosity of the AIS patrons is currently the main thing keeping these developments going financially. While I still put money out-of-pocket into development, it would be very difficult to continue without this external help. As of now … Continued
I have been working on the V2 electronics for the AIS-ILIS1 ionic liquid electrospray thruster fairly intensively the past half week. The V2 revision included HV rated mosfets, as well as HV rated opto-isolated gate drivers, to see if I … Continued
I finally got around to finishing the preliminary electrostatic modeling for the ILIS1 thruster development a while ago. The main objectives for this study have been comparing my selected geometry to other macro-ILIS systems in literature to get an idea … Continued
If you have been following my efforts on Twitter, you will have seen that there have been delays with qualification testing of the AIS-ILIS1 V1 electronics. UPS appeared to have misplaced the package, and I have been actively working with … Continued
This past Friday, March 13th I had the awesome opportunity to be a part of and contribute to the Open Source Hardware Summit 2020. Despite the challenges of the ongoing pandemic, the OSHA put together an amazing virtual conference, allowing … Continued