Natalya Brikner, CEO of the startup Accion Systems, holds an impossibly small spacecraft thruster in the palm of her hand. It looks more like a computer chip than a rocket—a gold-coated square of silicon the size of a dime.
Accion’s thruster has 480 barely visible nozzles etched into the surface of that silicon. It relies on a type of electronic propulsion that to date has only been used on a few space missions. An electric field is used to accelerate charged particles, normally using ions generated from a gas propellant, to create thrust.
Dozens of Accion’s thrusters can be packaged, along with a fuel tank, into a space propulsion system about the size of a deck of cards. Brikner says the technology, which will be launched into space on its first satellite in July, will make it practical to add propulsion to low-cost satellites that are as small as a tissue box, making them considerably more useful.
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