VACCO’s hybrid Micro Propulsion System (MiPS) combines green mono-propellant and cold gas propulsion in a single system to provide attitude control and orbital maneuvering. Argotec’s ArgoMoon program utilizes VACCO’s hybrid propulsion system to achieve high levels of total impulse in a limited volume to accomplish the mission requirements.
The VACCO ArgoMoon MiPS is approximately 1.3U plus the tuna can volume and uses one 100 mN green thruster to develop 783 N-sec of total impulse that provides 56 m/s of delta-V for a 14 kg CubeSat. The four 25 mN cold gas thrusters develop 72 N-sec of total impulse. Each thruster independently operates to perform both delta-V and ACS maneuvers through an integrated microprocessor controller.