Proving Performance: Inside Morpheus Space’s GO-2 Electric Propulsion System and Its Successful In-Orbit Demonstration
- Morpheus Space
- Aug 5
- 3 min read
Updated: Aug 14
As satellite missions become more complex and long-duration operations in space more common, the need for reliable propulsion systems has never been greater. At Morpheus Space, we designed our GO-2 Electric Propulsion System to directly address the reliability issues that have challenged the industry for years.
From the inside out, GO-2 is engineered for redundancy, resilience, and consistency, setting a new benchmark for satellite mobility and continuing to prove itself in orbit.
Built-In Redundancy: A Smarter Way to Prevent Failure
Traditional propulsion systems often rely on a small number of thruster elements, meaning a single component failure can bring down the entire system. GO-2 takes a fundamentally different approach.
With 40 fully independent thrusters, each powered and controlled separately, GO-2 is inherently fault-tolerant. In the rare case that one thruster underperforms, the others remain unaffected. The result is a propulsion system that continues to deliver reliable thrust - crucial for long-term satellite operation.
This redundancy isn’t just about surviving failures; it’s about enabling confidence and precision control. Whether performing station-keeping, orbit correction, attitude control, or deorbiting, operators can count on uninterrupted, precise, mission-critical performance.
Reliable Maneuvering: Individual Control of 40 Thrusters
In contrast to other Field Emission Electric Propulsion (FEEP) systems that can suffer from uneven emission currents across multiple sites, GO-2 controls and monitors the current of each individual emission site. This ensures optimal efficiency while limiting degradation over time.
Because we continuously adapt to changes and address potential long-term degradation throughout the system’s life, we’re able to optimize efficiency over each emission site to maintain peak performance and ensure system lifetime over extended missions.
This architecture allows the system to:
Maintain high thrust precision
Reduce system degradation
Deliver stable performance across the full mission lifespan
An added benefit of the GO-2 system is its thrust vectoring capabilities. Through the individual control of its 40 thrusters, GO-2 enables thrust vectoring that can be used for attitude control, desaturation of reaction wheels, or to compensate for any parasitic torque or thrust vector offset to the center of mass. Unlike conventional mechanisms that rely on gimbals or other moving components, this approach eliminates failure-prone, heavy, and mechanically complex parts.
This capability is inherently integrated into our GO-2 architecture and does not require any additional subsystems or hardware augmentation.
System Performance Validation: Ground Testing vs. In-Orbit Demonstration (IOD)
In March 2025, GO-2 was launched into a 510 km sun-synchronous orbit aboard D-Orbit’s ION spacecraft. This mission marks a milestone in qualifying GO-2 in space.
During this in-orbit demonstration, GO-2 was tested under real operational scenarios including:
Verifying functionality under space environment conditions
Characterizing thermal behavior and power demand in space conditions
Running various thrust profiles and operational modes and extensive performance characterization
The IOD campaign achieved all primary objectives, validating the operational reliability of the propulsion system in a true orbital environment. The correlation between on-ground testing and in-orbit performance confirms a high degree of consistency across critical system metrics.
Initial activation and Heat Up
Initial activation of GO-2 in space was successful, with stable communication links established immediately after deployment. Thermal management systems performed nominally, achieving operating temperature and full propellant liquefaction within 35 minutes—consistent with pre-flight thermal vacuum testing on ground. All 40 propellant tanks were successfully brought to operational temperature in orbit, a key benchmark previously validated in controlled ground environments.
Thruster Ignition
During the IOD mission, thruster ignition sequences were executed reliably, demonstrating the GO-2's operational robustness. The tests confirmed that the thrust profiles were precisely controlled and aligned closely with ground-based measurements, validating the accuracy of the propulsion system. The mission also verified the ability to step current between different levels, demonstrating consistent and controlled thrust generation along with rapid responsiveness to thrust commands within seconds, limited by the on-board data bandwidth. These results mark a key milestone in GO-2's in-space performance.
Power Consumption
The ion emission phase was sustained over more than an orbit, demonstrating controlled thrust and system stability throughout. Power draw characteristics recorded in orbit across the full operational cycle closely matched those from ground-based tests, reinforcing the predictive validity of our on-ground testing protocols.
Conclusion
In summary, the near-identical performance observed between on-ground and in-orbit conditions affirms the robustness of our test methodology and highlights GO-2's performance across critical operations domains.
GO-2 sets a new standard for electric propulsion systems by combining intelligent design with mission-critical resilience. Its redundancy-first architecture ensures consistent performance in Low Earth Orbit. As data from the in-orbit demonstration validates, GO-2 is steadily proving itself as one of the most efficient and reliable electric propulsion systems available.
To learn more about our IOD results, schedule a meeting with our team:
