Home | Magdrive

OUR FUTURE

IN SPACE

OUR TECHNOLOGY

A REVOLUTIONARY PLASMA THRUSTER FOR THE NEW SPACE AGE

01 / HIGH THRUST

The Magdrive has an extremely high thrust to weight ratio, with over an order of magnitude higher than any other electric thruster at up to 100mN at only 800g.

02 / RECHARGABLE

The Magdrive stores up to 4.5 kJ. The thruster is charged with solar power and then discharged rapidly for extremely high thrust manoeuvres

The Magdrive system can operate on the night side of the Earth.

03 / PROPELLANT

A high density solid metal propellant means a smaller storage system, reducing the mass of the propulsion system

This propellant is non-toxic and has no handling hazards unlike hydrazine for chemical propulsion.

04 / VARIABLE ISP

The Magdrive has a variable specific impulse from 1000s to 5000s

This allows for different regimes using the same thruster

Deep space travel is possible at a low thrust and high ISP regime, rendezvousing and avoidances are possible at a high thrust and low ISP regime.

05 / DIRECTIONAL

The nozzle can be tilted by varying the properties of the plasma chamber

This allows the Magdrive to direct its thrust and to gimbal with no moving parts

A single thruster can both propel the spacecraft and control altitude.

06 / DEEP THROTTLE

Electronic control of the Magdrive allows for deep throttle, reducing the thrust to less than 1%

This gives the operator highly accurate control for slowly approaching and rendezvousing with other spacecraft.

MEET MAGDRIVE

OUR TEAM

Magdrive was founded by

Dr Thomas Clayson and Mark Stokes of Imperial College London in 2019

We've come a long way from our mad startup ideas of the past to the Magdrive thruster

We have secured grant funding, a board of advisors and a laboratory at the European Space Agency Incubator to develop the best propulsion system for satellites.

OUR VISION

Our vision is to become the go-to propulsion system for satellites and deep space transport

A new space age is on the horizon and a breakthrough in propulsion technology is needed to achieve this. One which lowers the barrier to entering the industry, allowing for a new wave of inventive UK companies to drive innovation

At Magdrive, we are laying the infrastructure for this new space age economy.

OUR TECHNOLOGY

We offer the high efficiency of electric propulsion with the high thrust of chemical propulsion

We reduce the required propellant for satellites by 90%

This makes new missions possible; rendezvousing with larger satellites, constellation management, and de-orbiting for satellites of all sizes.

THE TEAM

Dr Thomas Clayson is a Plasma Physicist and Pulsed Power Engineer of Imperial College London and obtained his PhD in plasma laboratory astrophysics in 2018. Thomas has used pulsed power machines and high powered lasers to generate plasmas, studying the effects of magnetic fields, shock waves and radiation

Mark Stokes is a Mechanical and Machine Learning Engineer of Imperial College London. He has worked at startups and Fortune 500 companies in sales, and in nanomechanics, industrial design, signal processing, computer vision for robotics and aerospace