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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.
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.
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.
6 kW Hall thruster in operation at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In spacecraft propulsion, a Hall-effect thruster (HET) is a type of ion thruster in which the propellant is accelerated by an electric field. Hall-effect thrusters (based on the discovery by Edwin Hall) are sometimes referred to as Hall thrusters or Hall-current thrusters.
Spacecraft with electric propulsion Spacecraft name Launch date End of life Thruster type No. Model Propellant Spacecraft customer Thruster prime Comment Program 661A Flight A: 18 Dec 1962: 18 Dec 1962: Ion engine: 1: Cesium: USAF: EOS (Electro-Optical Systems, Inc.) Suborbital, no operation of on-board ion engine Kosmos 21: 11 Nov 1963: 11 Nov ...
A thruster is a spacecraft propulsion device used for orbital station-keeping, attitude control, or long-duration, ... Hall effect thruster, a type of ion thruster;
The spacecraft’s faulty thrusters were located in a portion of the ship known as the service module—a section that is jettisoned and burns up in the atmosphere before reentry. That makes it ...
The spacecraft uses ion propulsion. It has four SPT-140 engines, which are Hall-effect thrusters using solar electric propulsion, where electricity generated from solar panels is transmitted to an electric, rather than chemically powered, rocket engine.