Zenno Astronautics tests Supertorquer thruster in orbit
Zenno Astronautics · Impulse Space
Zenno Astronautics says it is the first company to operate a superconducting product in space, testing its fuel-free Supertorquer thruster.
what happened
New Zealand's Zenno Astronautics says it successfully operated its Z01 Supertorquer, a superconducting magnetic torquer, aboard Impulse Space's Mira satellite, which launched on SpaceX's Transporter-12 mission in November 2025, per Space.com. The company says it validated the device's thermal management, avionics, power delivery, and magnetic-field sensing in orbit and demonstrated that it could reorient the spacecraft using Earth's magnetic field rather than propellant.
why it matters
A fuel-free attitude-control method could extend small-satellite lifetimes by removing the need to carry propellant for orientation control, and Zenno says the underlying superconducting-magnet approach could eventually help propel spacecraft using only solar power. It is a single technology demonstration on someone else's satellite bus, not yet a flight-proven product Zenno sells directly to other operators.
signal-to-noise
quick facts
- Companies
- Zenno Astronautics, Impulse Space
- Category
- product
- Impact
- notable
- SNR
- 4 / 5
- Event date
- 2026-07-06
- Published
- 2026-07-08 10:03 UTC