In addition to 1U-3U satellites, mostly used for earth observation missions and technology demonstrations, there is particular interest by NASA and private sources to use larger CubeSat configurations (12U) for low cost planetary exploration, starting with the moon. Future NASA mission that could benefit from the liquid PPT thruster being developed herein are: BioSentinel (NASA Ames), LWADI (NASA Goddard) and, iiSat (NASA Marshall) just to name a few. Of the 110 CubeSats launched in 2014, only two were built by NASA, showing that large parts of the CubeSat community are universities, private companies, and international space agencies. All of these organizations are looking towards industry to develop CubeSat sized propulsion systems to help complete their specific mission, whether those needs are attitude control for accurate pointing or delta-v to increase on-orbit longevity due to atmospheric drag.
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