Bi-prop thrust vectoring mechanism

I developed the only bi-propellant thrust vectoring mechanism on the market. Here's some details.

The first product we developed at Meta Futura is this thrust vectoring mechanism. This was supposed to be the core of our high mobility satellite platform, to enable 6 DoF control with only two thrusters.

I developed, designed, assembled, and tested this whole mechanism by myself in the span of 5 months, up to TRL6. If this wasn't enough, I did it all from my living room in London, including building a makeshift clean room on the couch for assembly. Fair to say that my girlfriend wasn't amused by the whole ordeal.

What makes it special?

There are many thrust vectoring mechanisms on the market, mostly for electrical propulsion, but all of these share the same feature: only one propellant line. During my stint at Dawn Aerospace, I had the pleasure to work on bipropellant propulsion systems, and get to know the many advantages they have over traditional monoprop propulsion.

Qualification Testing

Tests done:

TVAC testing
Helium Leak testing
Motion characterisation
HDRM testing

Here's some videos from the testing

Media1.mp4

2 DOF movement with 700 g mock thruster

Media2.mp4

Operation at -30 °C and 1E-6 mbar Pressure

Media3.mp4

Testing at 60 °/s slew rate. 3.5 W power consumption. Qualisys motion tracking for perfomance characterisation.

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