science

ThrustMe

ThrustMe is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand ThrustMe rather than just read about it. In short: ThrustMe is a deep tech company that designs miniaturized aerospace thrusters for small satellites, increasing the life of satellites and making them more affordable. The company builds gridded ion thrusters (NPT30) and cold gas thrusters (I2T5).

Key takeaways

ThrustMe belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect ThrustMe to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of ThrustMe from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

ThrustMe is a deep tech company that designs miniaturized aerospace thrusters for small satellites, increasing the life of satellites and making them more affordable. The company builds gridded ion thrusters (NPT30) and cold gas thrusters (I2T5).

History ThrustMe was founded in 2017 by Ane Aanesland and Dmytro Rafalskyi, who previously worked at the École Polytechnique and CNRS as researchers in plasma physics and electric propulsion. Initially, the startup was incubated in Agoranov. Also in 2017, ThrustMe raised 1.7 million euros for its development. In 2018, ThrustMe received €2.4 million from the European Commission to commercialise electric propulsion for nanosatellites. In 2019, Ane Aanesland received the CNRS innovation medal for her entrepreneurial activities. The same year, Spacety and ThrustMe maneuvered for the first time a satellite using iodine as propellant, with a cold-gas thruster. In 2021, ThrustMe, in partnership with Spacety, achieved the first in-orbit demonstration of an electric propulsion system powered by iodine. The results were published as a research article in the journal Nature, where the maneuvers described resulted in a cumulative altitude change above 3 km. According to the European Space Agency, in regard to the use of iodine rather than Xenon in a gridded ion thruster, "This small but potentially disruptive innovation could help to clear the skies of space junk, by enabling tiny satellites to self-destruct cheaply and easily at the end of their missions, by steering themselves into the atmosphere where they would burn up."

Flight missions

Ongoing XiaoXiang 1-08 is a six-unit cubesat developed by Chinese satellite company Spacety. It carries ThrustMe's I2T5 non-pressurized cold gas thruster, the first in existence. BeiHangKongshi-1 is a 12-unit cubesat developed by Spacety. The satellite carries ThrustMe's NPT30-I2-1U, the first iodine electric propulsion system sent into space. The cubesat was launched on board the Long March 6 on 6 November 2020. According to Rafalskyi, advanced orbital maneuvers would be carried out to test the satellite's full capabilities. Hisea-1 is a 180-kilogram SAR minisatellite. It is the first generation of light, small SAR satellites developed by Spacety carrying a NPT30-I2-1U for orbit maintenance, collision avoidance, and end-of-life deorbiting. It was launched on board a Long March 8 rocket on 22 December 2020 for ocean research.

Announced NorSat-TD is a microsatellite developed by the UTIAS Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) for the Norwegian space agency. The satellite was [launched in 2023; earlier it was] scheduled to be launched in the first quarter of 2022. GOMX-5 is an 8U cubesat built by GomSpace for the European Space Agency to perform a technology demonstration mission. The launch is scheduled for 2026. INSPIRESat-4/ARCADE is a 27U spacecraft built by NTU, Jülich Research Centre, LASP, IISST and NCU. The satellite aims to flight in the VLEO (Very Low Earth Orbit) region to make in-situ Ionospheric plasma measurements. The thruster is expected to lower the orbit of the satellite to less than 300 km and enable the mission to survive at this altitude for a duration of 6 months or more. The launch is scheduled for 2022.

Awards French Tech Ticket, 2017. "Grand Prix i-LAB" of the 19th national competition to help the creation of innovative technology companies, 2017. "Prix de l'Excellence Française Innovation Spatiale", 2017. "Médaille de l’innovation du CNRS", for Ane Aanesland, 2019.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with ThrustMe

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what ThrustMe claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to ThrustMe before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about ThrustMe ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of ThrustMe

In research: ThrustMe appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses ThrustMe in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: ThrustMe is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Aerospace companies, Aerospace companies of France, Spacecraft propulsion, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for ThrustMe outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study ThrustMe in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what ThrustMe means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain ThrustMe out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is ThrustMe in simple terms?

Why does ThrustMe matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study ThrustMe?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on ThrustMe.