Our first webinar took place on 17.11.2021. During registration we received 17 questions from webinar participants. It took our experts some time to answer all the questions. And here are a few concise answers.
If you have additional questions, please do not hesitate to ask us!
Send your questions to info@queseppmp.eu!
What advice would you give to someone who wants to work in the space industry with the following background: MSc degrees in biochemistry/biotechnology and in space studies, thesis on the terraforming of Mars, final year of a PhD on the effects of ionising radiation on different plants and their potential for adaptation to ionising radiation? Do you have any recommendations, directions, or potentially interesting companies to look into? Thank you very much.
Companies in the space industry typically want to have a clear picture of a candidate. Thus, they struggle a bit when the profile is not totally shaped. The advice in this case could be to try defining your profile. What would you ideally like to do? Research? Engineering? Management? If you want to work in the space industry: Why? What would you expect there and not somewhere else?
Further, your background is probably suitable for national agencies such as DLR in Germany which typically do have several teams that handle both space and humankind/biology. Once you have gained some experience, you might choose to move more towards technical topics, e.g. radiation, or of course more into any other role.
Is nuclear energy (either RTG or mini compact reactors) under consideration to power electric propulsion in space where solar radiation is not present or not sufficient?
Nuclear energy (approx. a 1 MW reactor) is being considered by the German Space Agency in the framework of a collaboration project (INPPS flagship) between DLR and the Russian Federation. More info here: https://elib.dlr.de/134398/
Energy sources are an important limit in the further development of electric propulsion. Which energy technologies are most promising?
This depends on the mission. We believe that there is no need to switch from solar panels. Nuclear energy is probably more interesting for long-duration deep space missions (with less sun exposure). Also, for example, at ArianeGroup we are investigating setting up a system we call “water propulsion”, which uses water as a baseline for continuous electrolysis to hydrogen and oxygen. But of course, also getting the electric power from solar panels.
Are there PhD options within the industry?
Yes. For instance, JLU and ArianeGroup have a joint PhD programme on electric propulsion focussed on radiofrequency ion thruster technology.
I’m an astrophotographer who loves her job very much, but are there new career opportunities at the moment, to combine or expand this with other fields in the space sector?
A path to further investigate might be satellite integrators, and within agencies there are often applications / missions dedicated to earth observation which typically deal a lot with imagery. This would be something to look into.
Where is the small satellite market in Europe heading?
This market is so dynamic that no one could provide an answer to this question with certainty. Based on the current general trends of increasing industrialization and decreasing prices, small sat applications will be more and more likely to be considered by non-space participants, thus pushing the market even more.
Are job opportunities in electric propulsions in the EU available for international professionals or only for EU citizens?
The general space environment is international. However, each company or institution might have its own hiring policy. The main concern in this sector is security and confidentiality.
Regarding spacecraft charging, what are the solutions in case of just one electrospray?
Electrospray is typically very low power and thus normally only used on small cubesats (which is not really our domain).
Ionic liquids provide positive and negative charges; therefore, neutralization can be avoided by different polarities of extraction voltages.
How realistic is the idea of having totally pollution free propulsion systems in space and aeronautics by 2050?
We believe that electric propulsion as it is today can be considered totally pollution free: we use electric energy generated by solar panels and exhaust ionized neutral gas that does not cause harm in any manner. One can hardly do better, right?
What kind of specific education or courses do you need to work in this field? Do you have any information about courses, free or not, on the topic?
There are two different worlds in the space electric propulsion sector: the electrotechnical and the plasma-physical. For the first, it is helpful to have an education in the electrotechnical engineering field; for the second, an education with an affinity for physics is useful. Both worlds intersect to a certain degree, so there is nothing wrong with an overlap here. For electric propulsion, we have created a special degree programme at the Justus-Liebig University of Giessen that combines these two disciplines in a meaningful way.
When talking about a test services company in the field of electric propulsion, a basic knowledge of mechanics and electronics is required in order to follow tests and operate facilities. Moreover, if we are looking for someone to develop new diagnostics and/or new systems, the plasma-physical and thermal aspects are the most important topic for us. However, when looking for someone to hire, we focus more on the soft skills than on the educational background (teamwork, adaptability, problem solving…).
In operating with ion thrusters, what are your plans to deal with electrode (grid) corrosion and similar life-limiting issues? Beyond the most efficient configuration, would it be possible to achieve higher thrust while maintaining reasonable efficiency?
Keeping control of grid erosion is one of the major challenges. It is key to understand the conditions under which erosion happens and define healthy (and unhealthy) modes. This is constantly evaluated with simulations and tests. With respect to thrust, this is one of the scopes of a project like GIESEPP MP, to offer several operating points, including one for maximum efficiency and one for maximum thrust (but then lower efficiency), which can be selected according to the mission’s needs. Further on, hybrid solutions (e.g. electric + chemical) are being proposed.
What is the current TRL for electrical propulsion and what are the main barriers to its development?
TRL is linked to individual equipment. Regarding electric propulsion, there is a complete range of maturity from early ideas (low TRL) to fully qualified and long confirmed solutions (TRL9). In the GIESEPP MP project we aim to reach TRL7 on a system level. The main challenges in increasing maturity (on the ground) are typically the required lifetime verifications over several thousand hours which need to be done under high vacuum. This drives the cost up very much and typically requires several years of continuous testing and maybe the circumstance that all subsystems have to follow the development, e.g. a thruster alone cannot be operated without an appropriate (qualified) power processing unit (PPU).
Is it possible to manage electric propulsion at a decent power using sustainable energy and not RTGs?
In fact, using solar panels for primary energy generation is still the most sustainable solution. This is state of the art today even on very small satellites.
Is artificial intelligence already included in electric propulsion? How? If not, who can merge these domains and how? Is there any opportunity for a thesis in this combination of topics?
There has been some early assessment of whether AI can contribute to optimisation in manufacturing and testing. On “hardware close” elements like thrusters, it is probably less relevant; it might be more relevant on elements of “higher intelligence”, e.g. containing a fair portion of software, maybe on the power processing unit (PPU) level or platform level.
What is your understanding about the motivation of students and young professionals for joining the space sector?
Motivation needs to come from oneself. Speaking for me and probably lots of my colleagues, there is of course an ongoing fascination about working very often at the limits of both the technically feasible and the generally viable like environment and distances. This is nothing where you would fall into a routine – which is certainly not the case for every technical domain.
The space sector continues to develop. Working within this sector means that you can see, study and touch the latest technologies applied. It is definitely an exciting career path!
If you are curious, flexible and creative, the space sector is the best opportunity you can find!
It would be a successful idea to create a start-up in Tunisia to develop electric propulsion products. What about market access?
To gain market access one should probably use the same tools as for every other product idea: What does the market look like today? What is it asking for? What is the added value I can bring to motivate people to buy from me rather than from others?
I am an IT master’s student and am planning to do my thesis on robot design for space applications. Maybe you can give your thoughts on research possibilities in this area?
One recommendation would probably be to look up space agencies that typically have dedicated space robotics departments to cover all possible aspects. But some commercial integrators are investigating this direction as well, even more so with the “newer” initiatives like debris removal, space mining, space tugs, and on-orbit manufacturing.
The design and development of robots for space application is an important topic. There is a lot of interest in this topic. In the last two years, three master’s theses at the University of Siena (Italy) were written in collaboration with Aerospazio tecnologie. They were about the design of a robot for vacuum and space application. We believe it will be an important application regarding future space projects.
