When a new propulsion system works the first time.

It is almost unheard of for a satellite to work the first time it is sent into orbit, and even more rare for complex systems like the radio or propulsion to work. I know this personally since my first satellite, EagleSat-1, quickly became an orbiting brick of PCB's, aluminum, epoxy, and a tape measure.

This was not the case with a system that was launched with the 21-059 satellites. Stellar Exploration, (the company that I am currently working for until Buck Engineering and Consulting is able to generate enough revenue for me to work for myself full time), was contracted to create a new propulsion system to increase the altitude and inclination of a satellite or a customer that has tried and failed twice with different propulsion systems. The system is a very simple Hydrazine monoprop system that is able to store at a low pressure thanks to a gear pump.

As of 7/16, this system has been able to produce a deltaV of over 60 m/s. This might be small when compared to large systems but considering that this is the largest deltaV a cubesat has been able to produce to the best of my knowledge, (the previous highest was 15 m/s).

This was a wonderful project to work and to watch it go from a broken CAD assembly to a working propulsion system feels amazing. There is also a significant amount of Hydrazine left in the tank so we will try to convince our customer to de-orbit the satellite so we can run further tests on the system during depletion and to help reduce space debris.

Thank you for reading this little blurb, and I'm sorry but I can't officially say which spacecraft or company that we are working for on this, (but it's easy to see on celestrak's live orbit viewer).