Development of an Electrostatic Calibration System for a Torsional Micronewton Thrust Stand

This paper presents the development of an electrostatic calibration system that produces consistent and reproducible calibration force over three orders of magnitude in the range 30 μN-3.4 mN with a deviation error of less than 2%. In the proposed approach, the electrostatic force is generated using a pair of heat sinks that is electrically charged with high voltage and engaged at a particular distance. Precise control of the high-voltage pulses applied to the calibrator produces calibration impulse bit in the range 7-340 μNs. The calibrator is used to tune a torsional thrust stand that performs measurements of constant and impulsive force from any micropropulsion system.