Totally agree. My startup Solid State Propulsion is developing solid fueled ion thrusters that use solid metals as fuel. This ties in with our ultimate goal of one day refuelling from asteroids (our moonshot idea if you will). However our focus is 100% within startup physics. Our first product is the worlds smallest ion thruster (which is made possible by the metal fuel as we don’t require fuel tanks) which will deliver real value to real customers (developers of very small satellites known as pocketqubes and cubesats who have no propulsion options due to limited space onboard their tiny satellites). As we sell these thrusters and they are used in space it will allow us to fund the development of our larger higher power thrusters for much larger satellites 🚀
Totally agree. My startup Solid State Propulsion is developing solid fueled ion thrusters that use solid metals as fuel. This ties in with our ultimate goal of one day refuelling from asteroids (our moonshot idea if you will). However our focus is 100% within startup physics. Our first product is the worlds smallest ion thruster (which is made possible by the metal fuel as we don’t require fuel tanks) which will deliver real value to real customers (developers of very small satellites known as pocketqubes and cubesats who have no propulsion options due to limited space onboard their tiny satellites). As we sell these thrusters and they are used in space it will allow us to fund the development of our larger higher power thrusters for much larger satellites 🚀