Xenon, krypton, or argon are common choices for these thrusters, ... The ion thruster, fueled by xenon gas, ran for a total of 16,265 hours during the mission, ...

Desert Works Propulsion (DWP) has successfully completed initial testing of multiple prototype discharge and neutralizer ...

The idea behind electric propulsion is that an electric current ionizes (i.e. removes an electron from) atoms of a neutral ...

Predicting the lifetime of an electric ion thruster is notoriously difficult. You have to account for the chamber wall ...

The Xenon/Krypton facility is a 2-meter-diameter by 4-meter-long space simulation chamber for ground-testing flight-scale ion propulsion systems. The chamber is evacuated to ultimate pressure using ...

Amazon’s Hall-effect thruster fires up with a krypton glow during testing. (Amazon Photo) A month after the launch of its first prototype Project Kuiper satellites, Amazon reports that the ...

The Ion Space Propulsion Lab at Michigan Tech is a collection of research, development, and educational laboratories dedicated to advancing spacecraft technology. Doctoral research students build and ...

A form of electric propulsion known as Hall thrusters — a type of ion thruster — may actually pack more bang for the buck than expected. Hall thrusters have conventionally been used to adjust ...

Whether we call it a plasma thruster or an ion drive, ... Running with krypton, a lighter gas, they maxed out their power supply at 45 kilowatts. At an overall efficiency of 51%, ...

Busek’s BIT-3 RF ion thruster is an iodine-fueled gridded ion propulsion system scheduled for launch on two deep-space CubeSat missions aboard NASA’s Space Launch System rocket. Credit: Busek ...

The idea behind electric propulsion is that an electric current ionizes (i.e. removes an electron from) atoms of a neutral gas, such as xenon or krypton, stored on board a spacecraft.