I am absolutely blown away and truly moved by the unbelievable support of the community, who stepped up to provide funding for me to continue open source electric propulsion development at Applied Ion Systems even without me asking for help … Continued
All of the design files for the first generation of AIS thrusters I have completed to date – AIS-uPPT1, AIS-gPPT1, AIS-gPPT2-1C, AIS-gPPT3-1C, and AIS-gPPT3-1C Integrated Propulsion Module, have finally officially been released under the CERN-OHL-S V2 Open Source Hardware License! … Continued
It has been a crazy and rocky past week with the testing and rebuild failures of my latest acquired Edwards E2M18 vacuum pump. Without this pump, and really no money for a new pump or professional rebuild, I didn’t think … Continued
Despite the massive vacuum equipment setbacks and failures, I am still looking to try to move forward with some developments. I finally finished and am pleased to present a look at the first ever AIS thruster learning kit! Vacuum is … Continued
Over the past few days I have been working hard at rebuilding the faulty Edwards E2M18 vacuum pump I got used from eBay. To summarize it, the rebuild was a complete failure. While everything went back together fine after cleaning … Continued
Despite major setbacks yesterday with the failed vacuum pump testing, I do have some good news and progress. The in-vacuum fueling station for the ILIS1 has been completed, and has passed testing. Here is a video of the full loading … Continued
I wish I had good news to post about this time around, as I have a lot of major updates, but this is more urgent. The Edwards E2M18 I just recently purchased from eBay is not working, and is essentially … Continued
It’s finally in. The last piece of the puzzle. The EMI-BF4 ionic liquid fuel for the AIS-ILIS1 just arrived today. Everything should now be in for this massive ignition test. Still a ton of prep work to do, but we … Continued
Out of solidarity against the flagrant injustice and violence facing the peaceful protesters in the movement for equality, there will be no science post from me today, here and across the board on all AIS social platforms. Systematic intolerance, racism, … Continued
The upcoming ignition test for the AIS-ILIS1 ionic liquid ion source electrospray thruster will require a lot of setup, and multiple in-vacuum connections for the various stages of the test. The vacuum feedthroughs are finally prepped and ready for ILIS1 … Continued