ThrustMe

ThrustMe is a French deep tech company founded on February 3, 2017 by Ane Aanesland and Dmytro Rafalskyi, researchers from the plasma physics laboratory of the Ecole Polytechnique and the CNRS, headquartered in Verrieres-le-Buisson. The company designs miniaturized aerospace thrusters for small satellites, including the NPT30 gridded ion thruster and the I2T5 cold gas thruster, aimed at extending satellite lifetimes and lowering their cost. In 2019 a ThrustMe thruster became the first to maneuver a satellite using iodine as its propellant, and in 2021 the company demonstrated the first in-orbit iodine powered electric propulsion system, with results published in the journal Nature showing a cumulative altitude change of more than three kilometers.