An ion thruster, ion drive, or ion engine is a form of electric propulsion used for spacecraft propulsion. It creates thrust by accelerating ions using electricity. An ion thruster ionizes a neutral gas by extracting some electrons out of atoms, creating a cloud of positive ions. Ion thrusters are categorized as either … See more The first person who wrote a paper introducing the idea publicly was Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in 1911. The technique was recommended for near-vacuum conditions at high altitude, but thrust was … See more Pulsed inductive thrusters Pulsed inductive thrusters (PITs) use pulses instead of continuous thrust and have the ability to … See more Ion thrusters' low thrust requires continuous operation for a long time to achieve the necessary change in velocity (delta-v) for a particular mission. Ion thrusters are … See more Ion thrusters use beams of ions (electrically charged atoms or molecules) to create thrust in accordance with momentum conservation. The method of accelerating the ions varies, but … See more Gridded electrostatic ion thrusters Gridded electrostatic ion thrusters development started in the 1960s and, since then, it has been used for commercial satellite propulsion and scientific missions. Their main feature is that the propellant See more A theoretical propulsion system has been proposed, based on alpha particles (He or 2He indicating a helium ion with a +2 charge) emitted from a radioisotope uni-directionally through a hole in its chamber. A neutralising electron gun would produce a tiny amount of … See more Ionization energy represents a large percentage of the energy needed to run ion drives. The ideal propellant is thus easy to ionize and has a high mass/ionization energy ratio. In addition, the propellant should not erode the thruster to any great … See more Webthruster and ion engines for orbit transfer is lifetime. Lifetimes of up to 7400 hours (308 days) for the Hall thruster (SPT-100) 6 and 4350 hours (181 days) for the xenon ion engine 21 have been demonstrated, with an 8000 hour (333 days) test set to begin on the NSTAR ion engine. 18 The primary concern is thruster erosion (wall erosion for the ...
Ion Thrusters: Ultra-Efficient, High-Speed Spacecraft Propulsion
WebDec 6, 2024 · Robustness against a missed-thrust contingency is vital for continuous thrust missions. An ion engine sometimes stops for several reasons, such as occasional discharge phenomena on the thruster grids, single event phenomena in the thruster control electronics, and spacecraft temporal malfunctions. WebThe ion engine used 2100 W of this power. The xenon ions travel up to 35 km/s which means the specific impulse can reach a value of up to and the engine produced 92 mN of thrust. Due to the engine's high efficiency it needed only 81 kg (178 lbs) of xenon propellant to achieve its mission. sharepoint document checked out by myself
Aerospace Free Full-Text High Fidelity Multi-Objective Design ...
WebWe would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. WebMar 30, 2015 · NSTAR engines weigh 48 kg including the thruster, power processing units, xenon feed system, and control interface. Three of those and 475 kg of xenon will impart … WebThe Cusped Field Thruster (CFT) concept has demonstrated significantly improved performance over the Hall Effect Thruster and the Gridded Ion Thruster; however, little is understood about the complexities of the interactions and interdependencies of the geometrical, magnetic and ion beam properties of the thruster. This study applies an … pop asheville