Through HALE (Facility Establishment Project for Electric Propulsion Applications Research and Hall Thruster Development) Turkey will establish its first facility for research and development of electric thruster technologies. This project will build necessary knowledge base and facilities to design, manufacture, and test Hall effect thrusters. This facility will be established at TÜBİTAK UZAY with the support of the State Planning Organization (DPT). The thrusters, that will be developed and tested by this laboratory, will make it possible to design complicated space projects like lunar or interplanetary missions. And the infrastructure will be available for the development of new projects
Electric propulsion is relatively new to the space community as a reliable thrust generation technique and therefore will induce a more competitive space industry in Turkey. The project will increase the level of knowledge in space technology, in particular in the area of propulsion systems. The facility, that will be established during the project, will be available for all researchers, who want to work in this area.
HALE is going to develop a facility, which has strategic, technological and commercial importance at the international level. This will increase the number of infrastructures developed using national resources and the capacity it creates is going to minimize the dependence to other countries. It will also add the electric propulsion technology among the science and technology areas, where researchers can be productive using national resources only. HALE is going to be an important step for the national “Moon Project”.
HALE is going to start in June 2010 and will last until 2015.