Victor White

AN OVERVIEW OF MEMS-BASED MICROPROPULSION DEVELOPMENTS AT JPL

Development of MEMS (Microelectromechanical Systems) micropropulsion at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is reviewed. This includes a vaporizing liquid micro-thruster for microspacecraft attitude control, a micro-ion emgine for microspacecraft primary propulsion or large spacecraft fine attitude control, as well as several valve studies, including a solenoid valve studied in collaboration with Moog Space Products Division, and a piezoelectric micro-valve.

JPL micro-thrust propulsion activities

Formation flying and microspacecraft constellation missions pose new propulsion requirements. Formationflying spacecraft, due to the tight positioning and pointing control requirements, may need thrust control within 1- 20 uN to an accuracy of 0.1 uN for LISA and ST-7, for example. Future missions may have extended thrust ranges into the sub - mN range. However, all do require high specific impulses (>500 sec) due to long required thruster firings.

Thin films with ultra-low thermal expansion.

Ultra-low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) is an elusive property, and narrow temperature ranges of operation and poor mechanical properties limit the use of conventional materials with low CTE. We structured a periodic micro-array of bi-metallic cells to demonstrate ultra-low effective CTE with a wide temperature range. These engineered tunable CTE thin film can be applied to minimize thermal fatigue and failure of optics, semiconductors, biomedical sensors, and solar energy applications.

Controllable ON-OFF adhesion for Earth orbit grappling applications

ON-OFF adhesives can benefit multiple Earth orbit applications by providing the capability to selectively anchor two surfaces together repeatedly and releasably without significant preload. Key to this new capability, targets will not need special preparation; ON-OFF adhesives can be used with cooperative and non-cooperative objects, like defunct satellites or space debris. Using an ON-OFF adhesive gripper allows large surfaces on a target to serve as potential grapple points, reducing the precision needed in the sensing and control throughout the grapple operation. A space-rated adhesive structure is presented that can be turned ON-OFF using a slight sliding motion. This adhesive mimics the geometry and performance characteristics of the adhesive structures found on the feet of gecko lizards. Results from adhesive testing on common orbital surfaces like solar panels, thermal blankets, composites, and painted surfaces are presented. Early environmental testing results from cold temperature and vacuum tests are also presented. Finally, the paper presents the design, fabrication, and preliminary testing of a gripping mechanism enabled by these ON-OFF adhesives in preparation for satellite-servicing applications. Adhesive levels range from near zero on rough surfaces to more than 75 kPa on smooth surfaces like glass.

Demonstration of high contrast in 10% broadband light with the shaped pupil coronagraph

The Shaped Pupil Coronagraph (SPC) is a high-contrast imaging system pioneered at Princeton for detection of extra-solar earthlike planets. It is designed to achieve 10-10 contrast at an inner working angle of 4λ/D in broadband light. A critical requirement in attaining this contrast level in practice is the ability to control wavefront phase and amplitude aberrations to at least λ/104 in rms phase and 1/1000 rms amplitude, respectively. Furthermore, this has to be maintained over a large spectral band. The High Contrast Imaging Testbed (HCIT) at the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) is a state-of-the-art facility for studying such high contrast imaging systems and wavefront control methods. It consists of a vacuum chamber containing a configurable coronagraph setup with a Xinetics deformable mirror. Previously, we demonstrated 4x10-8 contrast with the SPC at HCIT in 10% broadband light. The limiting factors were subsequently identified as (1) manufacturing defects due to minimal feature size constraints on our shaped pupil masks and (2) the inefficiency of the wavefront correction algorithm we used (classical speckle nulling) to correct for these defects. In this paper, we demonstrate the solutions to both of these problems. In particular, we present a method to design masks with practical minimal feature sizes and show new manufactured masks with few defects. These masks were installed at HCIT and tested using more sophisticated wavefront control algorithms based on energy minimization of light in the dark zone. We present the results of these experiments, notably a record 2.4×10-9 contrast in 10% broadband light.

Blazed grating fabrication through gray-scale Xray lithography.

Blazed gratings have been fabricated using gray-scale X-ray lithography. The gratings have high efficiency, low parasitic light, and high groove quality. The fabrication technique and resist characterization are described. The gratings can be generated over a considerable range of distances from the X-ray mask, thus demonstrating the ability to write gratings on a substrate of effectively arbitrary shape.

WFIRST-AFTA coronagraph shaped pupil masks: design, fabrication, and characterization

Abstract. NASA WFIRST-AFTA mission study includes a coronagraph instrument to find and characterize exoplanets. Various types of masks could be employed to suppress the host starlight to about 10−9 level contrast over a broad spectrum to enable the coronagraph mission objectives. Such masks for high-contrast internal coronagraphic imaging require various fabrication technologies to meet a wide range of specifications, including precise shapes, micron scale island features, ultralow reflectivity regions, uniformity, wave front quality, and achromaticity. We present the approaches employed at JPL to produce pupil plane and image plane coronagraph masks by combining electron beam, deep reactive ion etching, and black silicon technologies with illustrative examples of each, highlighting milestone accomplishments from the High Contrast Imaging Testbed at JPL and from the High Contrast Imaging Lab at Princeton University.

Towards micropropulsion systems on-a-chip: initial results of component feasibility studies

Recent advances in the development of several micropropulsion components for microspacecraft applications are reported. These include a vaporizing liquid micro-thruster, a micro ion engine, a micro-isolation valve, a micro-piezo valve, and a micro-solenoid valve. These components are envisioned to be integrated with chip-based driver and power conditioning electronics into highly integrated, compactly configured micropropulsion modules, reducing overall system weight and size as well as cost and complexity of propulsion system integration. Proof-of-concept demonstration for several of the concepts was recently obtained. A vaporizing liquid thruster chip was able to demonstrate vaporization of water propellant at a power level of 2 W. A micro-isolation valve could be opened at an energy of 16 mJ within 0.1 ms, and sustain burst pressures of up to 3,000 psig.

Technology development towards WFIRST-AFTA coronagraph

NASA’s WFIRST-AFTA mission concept includes the first high-contrast stellar coronagraph in space. This coronagraph will be capable of directly imaging and spectrally characterizing giant exoplanets similar to Neptune and Jupiter, and possibly even super-Earths, around nearby stars. In this paper we present the plan for maturing coronagraph technology to TRL5 in 2014-2016, and the results achieved in the first 6 months of the technology development work. The specific areas that are discussed include coronagraph testbed demonstrations in static and simulated dynamic environment, design and fabrication of occulting masks and apodizers used for starlight suppression, low-order wavefront sensing and control subsystem, deformable mirrors, ultra-low-noise spectrograph detector, and data post-processing.

Fabrication and characteristics of free-standing shaped pupil masks for TPF-coronagraph

Direct imaging and characterization of exo-solar terrestrial planets require coronagraphic instruments capable of suppressing star light to 10-10. Pupil shaping masks have been proposed and designed1 at Princeton University to accomplish such a goal. Based on Princeton designs, free standing (without a substrate) silicon masks have been fabricated with lithographic and deep etching techniques. In this paper, we discuss the fabrication of such masks and present their physical and optical characteristics in relevance to their performance over the visible to near IR bandwidth.