It took 16 months to get Hayabusa back under JAXAAAEs full control and to rev up the
ion engines that would serve as the central power for the craft.
Space engines use electric and magnetic forces to eject plasma particles to attain reactive forward-propelling forces, as in current
ion engines and Hall effect thrusters.
The fuel used in DS1's
ion engine is xenon, a chemically inert, colorless, odorless and tasteless gas.
In the test model, an ion exhaust plume was produced that traveled more than four times faster than state-of-the-art
ion engine designs achieve.
EUROPE'S first mission to the moon will be powered by a new generation of Star Trek-style
ion engines, it was revealed yesterday.
In the Deep Space 1
ion engine, electrons are emitted from a hollow tube cathode and enter a magnetic-ringed chamber, where they strike xenon atoms.
A small tweak with the
ion engine three weeks later adjusted Dawn's track for a flyby of Mars in February 2009, which will send the craft into an orbit that stretches out to 1.
The NSTAR program was initiated in 1993, with JPL managing the effort and NASA Lewis developing the 30-centimeter-diameter
ion engine.
During the approach phase, the spacecraft's main activity will be thrusting with a special, hyper-efficient
ion engine that uses electricity to ionize and accelerate xenon to generate thrust.
NYSE: TXT) company, with a lithium
ion engine start battery.
The spacecraft used an
ion engine to slip into a lunar polar orbit.
Technical problems have cropped up with the xenon fuel tank and the high-voltage power units in the
ion engine, and officials were concerned that extra money might be required to fix things.
