Rocket company tests world's most powerful ion engine

Necuno

Necuno

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Rocket company tests world's most powerful ion engine (see for full article)
Rockets that would use charged particles to propel super-fast missions to Mars are one step closer, now that a small-scale prototype has been demonstrated at full power.

The ion engine may be used to maintain the orbit of the International Space Station within the next five years, and could lay the groundwork for rockets that could one day travel to Mars in about a month.

Since 2005, the Ad Astra Rocket Company of Webster, Texas, has been working to perfect a type of engine it calls VASIMR (Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket).

It uses radio waves to heat argon gas, turning it into a hot plasma – a state of matter in which electrons are no longer bound to atomic nuclei. Magnetic fields then squirt the superheated plasma out the back of the engine, producing thrust in the opposite direction.

It shoots the propellant out at much higher velocity than conventional engines, resulting in far more acceleration per kilogram of fuel consumed.

In the near term, the company hopes to use a 200-kilowatt VASIMR engine to provide periodic boosts to the orbit of the International Space Station (ISS), which gradually drops in altitude due to atmospheric drag.

Now, the company has run such an engine at full power for the first time. On Wednesday, it ran its VX-200 engine at 201 kilowatts in a vacuum chamber in Houston, passing the 200-kilowatt mark for the first time.
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bring me my Tie Fighter :)
 
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Plasma = a state of matter in which electrons are no longer bound to atomic nuclei

Holy guacamole!

So, they get a lot of argon gas from somewhere and compress it into a container.
Then they let a little bit out of the container, and microwave the argon gas until it's electrons are no longer orbiting their nuclei.
Then magnetic fields tjune the electrons where to go, and, because electrons are negative, they go, much in the same way as a CRT Television tube directs it's particles.
And, as these electrons leave, their exodus actually imparts movement energy somehow.

Incredible.
 
Previously, spacecraft – including Russian and European cargo ships – have provided these boosts by firing their engines while docked with the space station.

But with conventional thrusters, the boosts consume 7.5 tonnes of propellant each year. VASIMR could do the same job with just 0.3 tonnes of argon per year, Chang-Diaz says.
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That is an absolutely incredible difference.

I wonder where they get the energy from to run their microwave in space.
 
The_Librarian said:
201kW...


mmmm... can I put it on my car? :D
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its going to be a problematic drive on south african roads, especially now with all the disembowelment of the routes. i would at least suggest some form of spikes on front...
 
Necuno said:
not the same article jack, i suggest you read it first before ZOMG its same as my post.
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Did I say it was? I posted the link because mine also speaks about ion-engines Jack :rolleyes:

Your article:

Rockets that would use charged particles to propel super-fast missions to Mars are one step closer, now that a small-scale prototype has been demonstrated at full power.
Click to expand...

Mine...


A six-month space journey away, Mars often seems an almost impossible planet to reach. But engineers are developing a new engine that could turn six months to six weeks, bringing the Red Planet much, much closer than ever before.

Ion engines, on the other hand, accelerate electrically charged atoms, or ions, through an electric field, thereby pushing the spacecraft in the opposite direction. They provide much less thrust at a given moment than do chemical rockets, which means they can't break free of the Earth's gravity on their own.

If engines, such as VASIMR, could be developed to take people to the Red Planet in 40 days, "that puts it inside the range of what we feel comfortable of doing with humans," he told New Scientist. "Something like VASIMR – that's a game changer."
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Don't worry boys ... it's only gay if you make eye contact. ;)
 
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