Speaker: George Hicks (Magdrive)
Title: From Lab to Orbit: Demonstrating the Magdrive Rogue Thruster and Advancing Electric Propulsion Capabilities
Abstract: Magdrive is a British spacecraft propulsion founded in 2019 and based at Harwell Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire. This talk summarises how plasma physics is enabling a new generation of agile, efficient spacecraft with the development of the Magdrive Rogue thruster, a high-power pulsed plasma thruster. The Rogue uses an on-board pulsed power system to ionise solid metal propellant to achieve high thrust and specific impulse.
Highlights include recent milestones such as the first in-orbit demonstration of the Rogue, and the opening of the Disruptive Experimental Electric Propulsion (DEEP) lab, a user-facility which hosts new vacuum chambers and clean rooms for electric propulsion testing and production capabilities.
This session will introduce the space industry and explore the fundamentals of electric propulsion, the challenges of operating in increasingly crowded orbits, and the essential role advanced thruster technologies play in enabling in-orbit servicing, manufacturing, and sustainable space operations. We present ongoing diagnostic development work, including a new thrust balance design which is scalable to large thrusters and an investigation into the suitability of different metallic propellants. Finally, an initial study into metal deposition from the thruster exhaust plume is presented.