Small water powered motor National Geographic

The small motor can fit on the tip of a finger and runs on water: it does European Space Agency (ESA) is a device that produces oxygen and hydrogen through the decomposition of water, with the help of which motive force is achieved. Of course, do not think about some huge force, but in these cases it is not necessary. During the tests, a thrust of 1.25 thousand red Newtons was achieved, which was maintained continuously for 185 seconds by the fingernail-sized motor, which has a nozzle size of barely one millimeter.

It’s a special little engine called the ICE-Cube (short for “ice cube”). Imperial College It was developed by its researchers with support from the European Space Agency. The power of the device specifically designed to meet the needs of the ever-increasing nanosatellite (Cubesat) inventory is approx. 500 ppm of thrust from the space shuttle’s RS-25 engines.

The number of nanosatellites smaller than 10 kilograms, which is the size of an average suitcase, is growing exponentially, but there is very little space available on these devices for any type of independent propulsion and propellant. In addition, the requirements for engines that can be used in this way are small size, low electricity demand, and the use of non-high-pressure, non-toxic fuel. The ICE-Cube meets these requirements, as it produces oxygen and hydrogen from water using a small stream through electrolysis, which it uses directly for propulsion.

Producing the small engine is not easy, because the size of both the combustion chamber and the nozzle is barely 1 millimeter, so a method known in the field of microelectronics is required. Although it requires development more precise than a thousandth of a millimeter, this technology also allows these engines to be produced in large quantities, ensuring their cheapness. The same method can be used to make a small engine with a higher thrust of 1 Newton, called the ICE-200.

In the case of small satellites, these small engines can help to reach the exact and precise path, to avoid smaller obstacles (space junk), and to ensure that the satellite is able to return to the atmosphere as quickly as possible after completing its work and blocking it. From becoming space junk itself. In a similar small water-powered engine, it is precisely for these reasons NASA is working tooBut their devices are not very small.