Grants and Contributions:

Design of Satellite Propellant Tank: Self-guided Fluid Configuration for Efficient Fuel Management

21FAALBA15

$321,744.00

Mar 28, 2022 - Mar 31, 2027

Spacecraft in the weightless environment rely on fuel tanks to contain the fluid mixtures for propulsion. In weightlessness, this fluid reorients to minimize its thermodynamic energy and can take on unknowns shapes inside the fuel tank. Thus, guiding the fuel in the desired fashion to a spacecraft’s thrusters remains a challenging task. To circumvent the uncertainty of fuel supply to the thrusters, fuel tanks are purposely made larger to hold extra fuel, in addition to other necessary arrangements to force fuel to the thrusters. The larger fuel tanks and additional parts to supply on-demand seamless fuel result in additional mass, volume, and weight to space propulsion systems and to overall mission costs. The proposed payload development focuses on prototyping, testing, and demonstrating an innovative space technology to mitigate the disadvantages of current spacecraft fuel tanks, by engineering new fuel tanks that self-guide the fuel to occupy desired locations within the tank. The hypothesized passive liquid transport technique will therefore enable fuel tanks for spacecraft to be smaller, lighter and less bulky, which will reduce the costs associated with design, launch and operation.

Canadian Space Agency

The Research component of the program provides financial support to organizations to conduct space related research and development in priority areas. It will support targeted knowledge development and innovation to sustain and enhance the Canadian capacity to use space to address national needs and priorities in the future.

Edmonton, Alberta, CA T6G 2E1

003-2021-2022-Q4-00027

Grant

Grants and Contributions

Academia

Amendment #3 - Proponent has requested to increase the grant amount by $50,000 to allow for the Proponent to pay the National Research Council for the required flight hours as part of the funded research project due to a change in the payment policy for flights operated by the Flight Research Laboratory at the National Research Council.

Aug 7, 2025

University of Alberta

Class Grant and Contribution Program to Support Research, Awareness and Learning in Space Science and Technology

This program supports knowledge development and innovation in the CSA's priority areas while increasing the awareness and participation of Canadians in space-related disciplines and activities.

The Research Component aims to support the development of science and technology; foster the continual development of a critical mass of researchers and highly qualified people in Canada; and support information gathering and space-related studies and research pertaining to Canadian Space Agency priorities.