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An ion thruster, ion drive, or ion engine is a form of electric propulsion used for spacecraft propulsion. An ion thruster creates a cloud of positive ions from a neutral gas by ionizing it to extract some electrons from its atoms. The ions are then accelerated using electricity to create thrust.
Current EHD thrusters are far less efficient than conventional engines. [15] An MIT researcher noted that ion thrusters have the potential to be far more efficient than conventional jet engines. [16] Unlike pure ion thruster rockets, the electrohydrodynamic principle does not apply in the vacuum of space. [17]
Such a thruster often generates the source plasma using radio frequency or microwave energy, using an external antenna. This fact, combined with the absence of hollow cathodes (which are sensitive to all but noble gases ), allows the possibility of using this thruster on a variety of propellants, from argon to carbon dioxide air mixtures to ...
The NEXT thruster has demonstrated, in ground tests, a total impulse of 17 MN·s; which as of 2010 was the highest total impulse ever demonstrated by an ion thruster. [2] A beam extraction area 1.6 times that of NSTAR allows higher thruster input power while maintaining low voltages and ion current densities, thus maintaining thruster longevity.
The aircraft is an example of an ionocraft, which is powered by an ionic wind generated through controlled electrical discharge. The fuselage contains a stack of 54 lithium-polymer batteries. [ 2 ] [ 8 ] With the aid of a power supply unit these deliver a minimum of 20,000 volts of electrical potential, producing enough corona discharge (EMF ...
The gridded ion thruster is a common design for ion thrusters, a highly efficient low-thrust spacecraft propulsion method running on electrical power by using high-voltage grid electrodes to accelerate ions with electrostatic forces.
Illustration of the right-hand rule for the Lorentz force, cross product of an electric current with a magnetic field. The working principle involves the acceleration of an electrically conductive fluid (which can be a liquid or an ionized gas called a plasma) by the Lorentz force, resulting from the cross product of an electric current (motion of charge carriers accelerated by an electric ...
This plan was revised in 2017 and the car will use a monopropellant rocket for the land speed record runs. [51] For the car to achieve 800 mph (1,300 km/h), the monopropellant rocket would need to produce around 40 kN (8992 lbf) of thrust and the EJ200 jet engine 90 kN (20,232 lbf) in reheat. [52] Cockpit interior