Built for Mission | Propulsion Systems
Bradford Space builds on its experience with the Comet water thruster – the world’s first operational water propulsion system – to offer you a wide range of bespoke capabilities. If your mission calls for unusual or specific needs not provided for by our standard thruster products, we can provide a customized solution optimized to your spacecraft.
Water, as a resistojet propellant, is extremely useful for small spacecraft that have need for strong propulsive capabilities but want to avoid the handling, integration and operational complexities of a monopropellant system. Water offers a completely safe (for humans, spacecraft and rideshare launch vehicles) and low-cost way to achieve medium specific impulses and thrusts. It is indefinitely storable and Bradford has options for propellant additives to allow survival of below-freezing temperatures.
Such systems can be deployed as dV thrusters for formation flying, constellation management, orbit raising, collision avoidance and end-of-life disposal. It can also be used as an effective reaction control system to desaturate momentum wheels outside of the Earth’s magnetic field.