If the demo works, it would mark the first time a satellite has flown both chemical and electric propulsion off a shared propellant tank<\/a> \u2014 a long-standing dream for cubesat designers who have spent two decades watching mass and volume budgets eat into mission ambition.<\/p>\n One fuel, two jobs<\/p>\n Chemical thrusters and electric thrusters do almost opposite things. Chemical engines burn propellant fast, dumping a lot of energy in a short blast \u2014 ideal for orbital insertions or dodging debris. Electrospray thrusters, by contrast, use an electric field to accelerate charged ions out of a liquid propellant in a fine, low-thrust spray that can run for months. They sip fuel and steer with surgical precision.<\/p>\n Pairing them on a small satellite has historically meant two propellants, two tanks, two plumbing systems, and two sets of safety considerations. On a spacecraft the size of a carry-on bag, that is often a deal-breaker.<\/p>\n The MIT team found a way around the problem by exploiting an overlooked property of a propellant called ASCENT<\/a> \u2014 Advanced Spacecraft Energetic Non-Toxic Propellant. The fuel was designed as a less hazardous substitute for hydrazine, the toxic workhorse of in-space chemical propulsion. But it is also an ionic liquid \u2014 a salt that remains liquid in vacuum \u2014 which makes it a natural fit for electrospray hardware.<\/p>\n The dual-mode propulsion system offers advantages of both chemical and electrical propulsion in a single compact package, potentially enabling small satellites to conduct more complex missions on smaller, more cost-effective platforms.<\/p>\n How the ground test worked<\/p>\n To check whether ASCENT would actually behave as an electrospray fuel, the MIT team loaded about a gram of the propellant into small tanks connected to thrusters mounted on a model cubesat. The cubesat was suspended on a magnetic levitation platform inside a vacuum chamber to mimic the free-floating conditions of orbit.<\/p>\n The engineers then fired the thrusters at varying voltages and watched the cubesat spin like a slow-motion top. ASCENT matched the performance of standard electrospray propellants, and the thrusters ran continuously for extended periods without measurable degradation. That parity is the headline \u2014 because the chemical-side benefits come for free once the dual-mode architecture is on the table.<\/p>\n The orbital demonstration will be carried out by NASA\u2019s Green Propulsion Dual Mode mission<\/a>, a cubesat carrying one chemical thruster and four electrospray thrusters all fed from a single ASCENT tank. The mission is now targeted for launch no earlier than November.<\/p>\n The propulsion hardware itself is being integrated by a small commercial partner, Rubicon Space Systems<\/a>, which delivered the chemical side of the system. MIT supplied four flight-unit electrospray thrusters<\/a> to NASA for integration. The GPDM project is tracked publicly in NASA\u2019s TechPort database.<\/p>\n![\"cubesat](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/cubesat-electrospray-thruster.jpg\")
\nThe GPDM flight test<\/p>\n