IMPACT – Innovative Manufacturing Processes for Advanced Commercial Thrusters

IMPACT is a European ESA-funded project led by the University of Pisa, with Aerospazio Tecnologie S.r.l. and Nadir S.r.l. as partners. The project develops and validates advanced and additive manufacturing technologies for critical Hall thruster components, targeting scalable, low-cost production for LEO satellite constellations. Techniques such as PBF, MEAM, and SLA are applied to metallic and ceramic parts, including propellant distributors, discharge channels, magnetic circuits, and hollow cathodes. Manufactured components are experimentally validated and integrated into a breadboard Hall thruster, with the goal of demonstrating performance improvements and advancing the technologies to TRL 4, enabling future industrial adoption.