Features
MURJ
Volume 40, Fall 2020
From the Lab to Infinity and Beyond: Accion Systems MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
This issue’s spotlight features Natalya Bailey and Louis Perna, Founders of Accion Systems By Dinuri Rupasinghe
MIT is notable for aiding many students in their entrepreneurial endeavors, whether it be through seminars or by fostering conversations between students that turn into post graduation ventures. This is especially true for the many diverse STEM students who wish to turn their passion for research into a product or company. One notable team of MIT alumni has completed the daunting, yet exciting, journey from research to entrepreneurship. Accion Systems is a propulsion system company that has pioneered an efficient ion thruster: the Tiled Ionic Liquid Electrospray (TILE). This small-satellite propulsion company was cofounded by MIT graduates Natalya Bailey and Louis Perna, with the help and technical expertise of Professor Paulo Lozano at MIT’s Space Propulsion Laboratory. Natalya Bailey graduated from MIT with a PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics in 2015, after attaining a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering at Duke University. She is the current Chief Technology Officer of Accion Systems and a lifelong rocket enthusiast.
Accion Systems mission is to redefine the performance, efficiency, and scalability of spacecraft propulsion systems to expand what’s possible in space. [Credit: Accion Systems]
Their journey started when Bailey, Perna, and Professor Lozano collaborated at SPL. Perna met Professor Lozano while exploring options for his course 16 capstone project. He and his project partner chose to do a project on electrospray, testing colloid thrusters at high pressures. Thrusters are propulsion systems that can change the movement of a satellite in space. Colloid thrusters, specifically, are thrusters where Louis Perna graduated from MIT after obtaining an charged liquid droplets are used to produce undergraduate degree in Aerospace Engineering such thrust. After this research, Perna became and finishing a Master of Science in Aeronautics further fascinated with propulsion and aerospace and Astronautics in 2014. He is currently Chief engineering and decided to pursue an advanced Scientist at Accion Systems, and I had the pleasure degree in propulsion. of speaking to him about his transition from Perna had stepped in line to hand in his registration academia to Accion Systems. papers for graduate school at MIT, when he 7
