B20 Bipropellant Thruster

The B20 is Dawn Aerospace’s larger green propulsion thruster, delivering a thrust range of 6.46 to 18.11 N (1.45 to 4.07 lbf). It uses non-toxic nitrous-oxide-based bipropellant chemistry with a spark-based igniter and can also operate in a cold-gas mode for fine attitude control.

The B20 is self-pressurizing, eliminating the need for a separate pressurization system or regulators, and is rated for 10,000+ restarts per thruster with a 4 Hz pulse frequency. It integrates the thruster, valves, and control electronics into a single additively manufactured Inconel 718 body with health monitoring instrumentation, standard power/data interfaces, and is operable under ambient conditions for fast ground testing. It can be operated together with or independently of Dawn’s B1 thrusters, and interactive STEP files are available for download.