Elwing Europe S.A., an affiliate of the Elwing Company, has been incorporated in Luxembourg and will become the focal point for all of Elwing’s accelerated development, manufacturing and commercial activity in Europe.

Elwing developed the electrodeless plasma thruster technology solely via private funding. The Electrodeless Ionization Magnetized Ponderomotive Acceleration Thruster (E-IMPAcT) has been previously tested at the Electric Propulsion and Plasma Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University, as well as at ONERA, the French Aerospace Lab, and is currently undergoing extensive testing at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

The Electrodeless Ionization Magnetized Ponderomotive Acceleration Thruster (E-IMPAcT) technology, exclusive to Elwing, is a radical departure from electric propulsion used in on-orbit satellites so far, such as ion the thruster used on NASA’s Deep Space-1 or Hall Thrusters on numerous Russian Satellites for the past three decades. Those first generation systems relied on driving a current through electrodes or grids, and was thus subject to wear, erosion and subsequent failure. Elwing’s E-IMPAcT technology, however, is fully electrodeless, using immaterial microwave to accelerate propellant to high velocity. By eliminating the fragile and life-limiting electrodes, this electrodeless plasma thruster technology holds promise for substantially larger payloads.

"The prospect of collaborating with members of the Luxembourg Space Cluster is something I'm very much looking forward to," said Elwing’s CEO Gregory Emsellem. "With Luxembourg's high level of determination and continuous achievement in the commercial space industry, we're more than a little excited to establish our European headquarters here.”

The E-IMPAcT technology, on which Elwing Europe holds exclusive rights in Europe for all civil and commercial uses, represents a departure from other electric propulsion systems, such as ion and Hall thrusters, that are currently used on some commercial and scientific missions. The advantage of E-IMPAcT is that electrodes, which are the most frequent source of problems in other plasma thrusters, are entirely eliminated..

The Elwing Company conceives, designs, develops, manufactures, and markets advanced propulsion systems for satellites. Established in 2002, The Elwing Company is privately held and has offices, affiliates and subsidiaries in  the U.S. and Europe. Elwing has been granted more than 25 patents in more than fifteen jurisdictions on its technology innovations, including U.S. patent 7,461,501 and European patent EP 1,460,267. Elwing is focused on primary leadership in the next generation of electric propulsion for spacecraft, opening the way for faster electric orbit-raising by leveraging its exclusive, patented technological breakthroughs.