Technology developed at the Research School of Physics has attracted attention from the Taiwanese Space Agency.

After a group from Taiwan toured the Space Plasma and Plasma Processing (SP3) lab as part of a recent Fluid Mechanics Conference in Canberra, the Director-General of the Taiwanese Space Agency, Dr Jong-Shinn Wu reached out to Emeritus Professor Rod Boswell from the SP3 group and invited him to visit to discuss the Bogong space thruster.

Bogong is a cold gas thruster that uses solid naphthalene as a fuel, ideal for small satellites, and is being commercialised by Boswell Technologies.

“Because it is light and has such low power, Bogong is the only thruster around that will be able to efficiently manoeuvre a cubesat,” Emeritus Professor Boswell said.

Bogong had its first successful test on board a SkyKraft satellite, (approximately 20 times larger than a cubesat) in late 2023, and demonstrated enough thrust to tilt and rotate the satellite as it orbited.

The Taiwanese Space Agency is working with National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University to develop and launch a 1 m³ earth observation satellite.

“They are interested in working with us, which is nice. It’s a good example of a university department and a national government laboratory together to create sovereign competence in areas that are crucial for spacecraft,” Emeritus Professor Boswell said.

The next step for Bogong is to add directional control for the thruster, which is being funded through the iLAuNCH collaboration, and is slated for testing in the near future.