US Patent Issued to ICEYE on Sept. 9 for "Spacecraft propulsion system and method of operation" (Finnish Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 10 -- United States Patent no. 12,410,783, issued on Sept. 9, was assigned to ICEYE OY (Espoo, Finland).

"Spacecraft propulsion system and method of operation" was invented by Jakub Korczyc (Espoo, Finland), Jonathan De Holanda (Espoo, Finland) and Rafal Modrzewski (Espoo, Finland).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method of operating a spacecraft propulsion system comprises injecting electrons into the plasma surrounding the spacecraft prior to creating the stream of ions, and after commencing creation of the ion stream, continuing the injection of electrons in an amount sufficient to maintain the spacecraft at a positive potential. This method may be implemented in a si...