top of page

Effective collaboration between industry and academe at the Space Plasma Power and Propulsion group at ANU.

Presented by:

Rod Boswell

Rod Boswell

Boswell Technologies

 

Mahdi Davoodianidalik

SP3/ANU

 

Horst Punzmann

ANU

 

Matt Shadwell

SP3ANU

 

Dimitris Tsifakis

SP3ANU

 

Christine Charles

SP3ANU

 

Josef Richmond

SP3ANU

Boswell Technologies is funding a number of projects with the Space Plasma Power and propulsion group at the Research School of Physics ANU. The primary joint interest is the space propulsion project centred around Bogong, a cold (sometimes warm) gas thruster using naphthalene as a propellent. BT is funding an opportunity with Skykraft for a ride to 500km sun synchronous orbit in November 2022. Details in the talk by Mahdi Davoodianidalik. Further areas of collaboration are: 1) Solar concentrator for melting lunar regolith to be employed in 3D printed lunar habitats. 2) Largest Moon/Mars dusty vacuum space simulator in Australia. The DOME is 3 metres inner diameter and can be vacuum pumped to pressures found on Mars. This allows testing of rovers, helicopters, dust levitation using Lyman alpha high power photon sources. 3) Pressure Swing Apparatus for separating gases, especially oxygen from nitrogen in air and CO2 from the air. The zeolite 13x is a molecular cage with holes about 1 nanometre in diameter and selectively absorbs smaller molecules from gas mixtures using a pressure swing technique. 4) Sabatier process for producing methane and oxygen from CO2 and Hydrogen by passing them through small grids coated with activated ruthenium. This process can be used to retain oxygen as in the International Space Station or as a carbon neutral way of producing automobile or rocket fuel at the point of use.

Category:

Space engineering & technology, including Cubesats

bottom of page