About

Founded in 1998 and located in Champaign, Illinois, Champaign-Urbana Aerospace develops an innovative range of aerospace technologies, including space propulsion systems, advanced aerospace materials,simulation tools and plasma technology.

In an effort to provide a “responsible space” option to existing and future satellite manufacturers, CUA has developed five innovative micropropulsion systems that represent
tipping point technologies for future integration and flight on micro/nanosatellites. The company takes pride in its ability to innovate and develop quality new solutions for the ever-evolving aerospace environment. The CUA family of micropropulsion systems provide a broad range of capabilities from high thrust to high specific impulse to best suit the needs of the customer.

Advantages of onboard propulsion:
• Collision avoidance (avoids escalation of orbital debris problem and the Kessler Syndrome)
• Orbit raising and lowering
• Inclination change (some systems)
• Rendezvous (some systems)
• Drag makeup and orbit maintenance
• Deorbiting at end of satellite useful life to help satellite owners meet the new FCC 5 year deorbit rule

SPACE SYSTEMS HARDWARE: HARDWARE FOR THE FUTURE
The CubeSat High Impulse Propulsion System (CHIPS) leverages CUA’s patented compact resistojet technology to provide a high performance self pressurizing liquid propellant warm-gas system. The CHIPS system design is highly flexible and typically includes attitude control system (ACS) thrusters that can enable up to six degree of-freedom (6DOF) control of the CubeSat.

CUA’s Monofilament Vaporization Propulsion (MVP) system draws from extrusion 3D printer technology to feed and melt spooled polymer propellant prior to evaporation using CUA’s compact resistojet technology. This patented technology retains performance characteristics
competitive with other warm-gas systems, but enables more customer accessibility to micropropulsion via dramatically reduced cost and the elimination of range safety concerns.

The patented Fiber-fed Pulsed Plasma Thruster (FPPT) consumes spooled Teflon fiber propellant. FPPT is completely non-toxic with benign exhaust, no range safety concerns, and
has on-demand thrust with no warmup time requirement. CUA believes that the FPPT technology is a compelling option to meet many high total impulse micropropulsion needs including deepspace missions.

CUA has tested a proof-of-principle Monopropellant Propulsion Unit for CubeSats (MPUC) using a peroxide alcohol propellant mixture denoted as CMP-X. This monopropellant has zero toxicity, demonstrated no detonation or mass explosion and is recommended for exclusion from the explosives class list. MPUC can be scaled for very high thrust and has a lower flame temperature than other monopropellants resulting in reduced spacecraft thermal concerns.

The Propulsion Unit for CubeSat (PUC) is a complete, high performance, and compact small satellite propulsion solution. PUC achieves its high impulse, low-volume capability by employing CUA’s patented micro-plasma discharge technology.

CUA’s Cycle Automated Mass Flow (CAMFlow) system is designed for reliable and well-regulated flow control at an affordable price for the nanosatellite market. CAMFlow is ideal for the low flow rates necessary for subkilowatt Hall effect thrusters.

Solar and Drag Sails – Propellantless Propulsion: CUA has developed multiple solar and drag sail
technologies (CubeSail, I-Sail, UltraSail, and DragSail). A major advantage of a “propellantless” solar sail is that the need for a relatively massive and expensive propulsive device is avoided.
Drag sail technologies can also take advantage of propellantless solar sail technology at higher altitude and then ultimately utilize aerodynamic forces to drag a spacecraft down to burn up in
the Earth’s atmosphere.

Our website is www.cuaerospace.com and contact us at carroll@cua.space for more information.