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posted by janrinok on Thursday September 29 2016, @07:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the worth-a-try dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Researchers led by NASA's former chief technologist are hoping to launch a satellite carrying water as the source of its fuel. The team from Cornell University, guided by Mason Peck, want their device to become the first shoebox-sized "CubeSat" to orbit the moon, while demonstrating the potential of water as a source of spacecraft fuel. It's a safe, stable substance that's relatively common even in space, but could also find greater use here on Earth as we search for alternatives to fossil fuels.

Water is a way around this issue because it is essentially an energy carrier rather than a fuel. The Cornell team isn't planning to use water itself as a propellant but to rather use electricity from solar panels to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen and use them as the fuel. The two gasses, when recombined and ignited will burn or explode, giving out the energy that they took in during the splitting process. This combustion of gasses can be used to drive the satellite forward, gaining speed or altering its position in orbit of whichever desired planet or moon is the target.

Solar panels, with high reliability and no moving parts, are ideally suited to operate in zero gravity and in the extreme environments of space, producing current from sunlight and allowing the satellite to actively engage on its mission. Traditionally this energy is stored in batteries. But the Cornell scientists want to use it to create their fuel source by splitting the on-board water.

Source: http://phys.org/news/2016-09-space-rocket-fuel-power-revolution.html


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  • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Thursday September 29 2016, @09:08PM

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 29 2016, @09:08PM (#408119) Journal

    What is so difficult about solar electrolysis?

    Well, I think the problem with it is that is not all that difficult, but the energy you get from it is proportional to the effort put in.

    Consider the following:

    Energy "a" released from the Sun on a small area -> photocell with significant ineffeciency -> electrolyzer that frees up hydrogen -> hydrogen with stored energy "b"

    The problems with this stem from the facts that (1) "b" is much, much smaller than "a", and (2) "a" was not all that big to begin with.

    It's like having almost nothing, and turning it into the limit of nothing as it approaches zero, but in a conveniently portable form.

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