The following list summarizes the products and services produced in E.T.PACK and have a high potential to open new business opportunities. Interested customers, investors, and innovators may contact directly with the partner that led the development (indicated with brackets for each product and service). The list will be updated during the project accordingly to the achievement of the team.
HARDWARE
- CETUS. The Compact Electrodynamic Tether for launcher Upper stages and Satellites deorbiting device (CETUS) is designed to be installed on customer spacecraft before launch and activated from ground. Upon activation it deploys a thin aluminium tape of length around one kilometer. The tape interacts with the magnetosphere to generate a Lorentz force of several tens of mN. A demonstrator of CETUS is currently under development. It has two independent modules named the Electron Emitter Module (8U, 12 kg) and the Deployment Mechanism Module (4U, 11 kg). After activation, they separate and deploy a 500m-long tether (1kg). Testing activities in the laboratory will be carried out until the end of the E.T.PACK project in November 2022 to reach TRL 4 (SENER)
- C12A7 Electride Hollow Cathode. A miniaturized heaterless hollow cathode has been developed to fit the demanding requirements of the deorbit device. The cathode is designed for the sub-Ampere range with a low power consumption and operates with krypton. (TUD).
- Electron Emitting C12A7 Ceramics. C12A7 electride ceramics with low work function (< 2.4 eV) can be produced in various geometries and also coatings with thick-film technology (printing process). Find here more information and services. (IKTS).
SOFTWARE
- BETsMA v2.0. Software for the preliminary analysis of missions with electrodynamic tethers (deorbiting and reboost modes). An online service is available at https://betsma.uc3m.es/. (UC3M).
- FLEX. Software for the detailed dynamic analysis of missions with electrodynamic tethers. The software includes tether elasticity and flexibility and finds its attitude during the deorbiting maneuver under the action of the electrodynamic force, the aerodynamic drag, and other orbital perturbations. (UniPD).
- FONKS-G. Free-of-Noise Kinetic Solver for Generic Geometry. Vlasov-Poisson solver based on a backward Liouville method to compute the plasma sheath around an electron emitting 2-dimensional object (UC3M).
- FONKS-C. Free-of-Noise Kinetic Solver for Cylindrical Geometry. Vlasov-Poisson solver to compute the plasma sheath around an infinitely long cylinder that emits electrons (UC3M). A database of solutions computed with the code and an user-friendly software to visualize the solutions is available at https://doi.org/10.21950/MBTLKG. (UC3M)
E.T.PACK 