One of the two major apostles of the still dubious electromagnetic drive (EM Drive or EmDrive) engine that might make near light speed space travel possible wants to test his version of the technology on a small cube satellite (CubeSat) to prove it can work in space.

American inventor Guido Fetta designed a version of the Emdrive called the Cannae Drive in 2006 and plans to test a tiny version of his rocket engine on a CubeSat ( a U-class spacecraft), which normally has a dimension of 10 cm x 10 cm x 11.35 cm.

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Fetta organized his company, Cannae LLC, in 2011 to promote his Cannae Drive, also known as a "Q-Drive."

Fetta said his company will demonstrate its Cannae proprietary thruster technology on an upcoming satellite mission. He explained Cannae's technology requires no on-board propellant to generate thrust and will provide station-keeping for a 6U CubeSat flying below a 150 mile orbital altitude. The demonstration satellite will remain in this orbit for a minimum of six months.

He also announced that Cannae has formed Theseus Space, Inc. to work with its commercial partners to execute the technology demonstration mission. Theseus will launch the CubeSat within 24 months counting from last July and will use an existing satellite integrator for the build and launch of the cubesat. 

LAI International in Arizona continues to provide manufacturing and project support. SpaceQuest Ltd. in Virginia is providing system integration, technical support and program management for the CubeSat mission.

Cannae explains its thruster technology "is capable of generating thrust from a few uN up through several newton thrust levels and higher levels."

It said its Cannae thruster technology is particularly useful for small satellite missions due to its low power, mass and volume requirements.

"Our thruster configuration for the CubeSat mission with Theseus Space, Inc. is anticipated to require less than 1.5 U volume and will use less than 10 watts of power to perform station keeping thrusting."

"Once demonstrated in orbit, Theseus will offer our thruster platforms to the satellite marketplace."

The EmDrive and the Cannae Drive are what's called an "RF (radio frequency) resonant cavity thruster." They're one of several hypothetical machines that work by having a magnetron push microwaves into a closed truncated cone, then push against the short end of the cone, thereby propelling the spacecraft forward.

The EmDrive and the Cannae Drive don't require any kind of propellant to create propulsion. The Cannae Drive features an asymmetrical cavity, but is flatter than the EmDrive.

Fetta said his Cannae Drive works by deriving force from a reduced reflection coefficient at one of the device's end plates, due to imbalances in the Lorentz force (a combination of electric and magnetic force on a point charge due to electromagnetic fields). 

TagsCannae Drive, cube satellite, CubeSat, Guido Fetta, EM drive, EmDrive, Cannae LLC