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A Hall-effect thruster designed by University of Michigan researchers, NASA, and the U.S. Air Force has achieved a maximum thrust of 5.4 Newtons. The "X3" thruster uses three channels of plasma instead of a single channel like most Hall thrusters. It is designed to operate at 200 kW but has been tested at a range of 5 kW to 102 kW so far:
A thruster that's being developed for a future NASA mission to Mars broke several records during recent tests, suggesting that the technology is on track to take humans to the Red Planet within the next 20 years, project team members said.
The X3 thruster, which was designed by researchers at the University of Michigan in cooperation with NASA and the U.S. Air Force, is a Hall thruster — a system that propels spacecraft by accelerating a stream of electrically charged atoms, known as ions. In the recent demonstration conducted at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Ohio, the X3 broke records for the maximum power output, thrust and operating current achieved by a Hall thruster to date, according to the research team at the University of Michigan and representatives from NASA.
"We have shown that X3 can operate at over 100 kW of power," said Alec Gallimore, who is leading the project, in an interview with Space.com. "It operated at a huge range of power from 5 kW to 102 kW, with electrical current of up to 260 amperes. It generated 5.4 Newtons of thrust, which is the highest level of thrust achieved by any plasma thruster to date," added Gallimore, who is dean of engineering at the University of Michigan. The previous record was 3.3 Newtons, according to the school.
A manned Mars mission could require a thruster capable of operating at 500 kW-1 MW, if not more.
Previously: Researchers Improve the Design of Cylindrical Shaped Hall Thrusters
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @09:45AM (7 children)
Really? Back to this ion engine, isn't the xenon used for propellent about 10 times the price of petroleum?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @09:55AM (3 children)
Petroleum? I didn't realize that the weight and potential energy of petroleum made it an effective fuel for spacecraft.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @10:11AM (1 child)
Nor does the weight and environmental cost of batteries currently make electrics an effective replacement for petroleum powered vehicles here on Earth. [bloomberg.com] We are all betting that the technology of electric vehicles will improve, I doubt that the economic efficiencies of ion thrusters will unless they can work with another gas for propellant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @01:14PM
False equivalency.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2017, @04:06PM
He's clearly a 20th century AC. We've long moved on from internal combustion engine-based rockets.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Monday October 16 2017, @11:10AM (1 child)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine_Satellite [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday October 16 2017, @01:53PM
This even letting aside you have a disinfectant at hand if you scratch yourself during an EVA - who knows what looms into that filthy LEO, with no anti-tetanus vaccines?
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday October 16 2017, @01:27PM
That's not very expensive. Keep in mind that that's it's at least another order of magnitude on top of that (even on the cheapest rocket) in cost to put that xenon in space where electric propulsion would operate.