Ads
related to: electrostatic ion thruster for boats near me
Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
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.
Electrostatic ion thrusters have also achieved a specific impulse of 30–100 kN·s/kg, or 3,000 to 10,000 s, better than most other ion thruster types. Electrostatic ion thrusters have accelerated ions to speeds reaching 100 km/s .
The Dual-Stage 4-Grid (DS4G) is an electrostatic ion thruster design developed by the European Space Agency, [1] in collaboration with the Australian National University. [2] The design was derived by D. Fern from Controlled Thermonuclear Reactor experiments that use a 4-grid mechanism to accelerate ion beams.
This is a fundamental difference with ion thrusters which rely on electrostatics to accelerate only positive ions using the Coulomb force along a high voltage electric field. First experimental studies involving cross-field plasma accelerators (square channels and rocket nozzles) date back to the late 1950s.
Field-emission electric propulsion (FEEP) is an advanced electrostatic space propulsion concept, a form of ion thruster, that uses a liquid metal as a propellant – usually either caesium, indium, or mercury. [1] A FEEP device consists of an emitter and an accelerator electrode.
Gridded electrostatic ion thrusters commonly utilize xenon gas. This gas has no charge and is ionized by bombarding it with energetic electrons. These electrons can be provided from a hot-filament cathode and accelerated in the electrical field of the cathode fall to the anode (Kaufman type ion thruster). Alternatively, the electrons can be ...