SITAEL HT100 Thruster Unit, Full Ground Qualification

The present paper describes the work carried out at SITAEL in the last year and a half to bring the HT100 thruster unit to full ground qualification. HT100 is SITAEL most advanced Hall Effect Thruster and it already secured the opportunity of an extended InOrbit Validation in the framework of HETSat mission, on a platform also designed, manufactured and assembled by SITAEL. The thruster, tested both with xenon and krypton and operating at power levels that can be as low as 100W, is a cornerstone for future small satellites missions that will require a significant total DV and have tight constraints on maximum propellant mass. HT100 has been developed in parallel with a dedicated feeding system and power processing and control units, which have also been extensively tested both in standalone mode and coupled with the thruster unit. The qualification test campaigns can be broadly divided in three main segments: thruster performance verification, coupling tests with the other relevant subsystems and environmental tests. Following the completion of each one of these phases, SITAEL is now in the process of assembling a proto-flight model for the whole propulsion system and go through the final acceptance tests within the end of the year.