Hydrogen is one of the ideal solutions to accompany Italy in its energy transition and to make the growth of the space economy more accessible, greener and more commercial. This element, the Italian supply chain and the state of current technological development were discussed at a conference at the Senate, organised by Senator Antonio Trevisi, member of the Environment Commission, in which MIPRONS participated with its founder and CEO Angelo Minotti.
“MIPRONS was founded in 2019 with the aim of prototyping a series of patents in the space sector, and is the only company in Italy, and one of only four in the world, developing an innovative propulsion system for satellites that charges water. There is a lot of talk about hydrogen, but it is water that is important to have an alternative to very specific propellants that can be geopolitically dependent. Our goal is to charge water in a miniaturised, powerful and fundamentally green system, thus contributing to the fight against pollution of the space environment,” explains Prof. Minotti.
“The propulsion system, which is smaller than a half-litre bottle of water, uses water as its primary fuel. The water drips into an electrolyser and is split by a membrane into hydrogen and oxygen. These two elements are then returned to the combustion chamber where they are ignited to produce propulsion.
The system is versatile, it can be used in very small satellites up to macro-satellites, but it has an additional advantage: water is the only propellant that can remain in orbit indefinitely, avoiding various safety issues,” concludes Minotti.