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Glenn Powers Ahead With Ion Engine
Spacedaily ^
| 7/11/02
| spacedaily
Posted on 07/12/2002 4:49:31 PM PDT by Brett66
Glenn Powers Ahead With Ion Engine
Robert Jankovsky, NASA Glenn's Hall Thruster team lead, displays a model of the new NASA-457M Hall thruster, the largest ever built and tested. |
Cleveland - Jul 11, 2002
A giant leap toward enabling high power electric propulsion was recently demonstrated. With power levels up to 72 kW and nearly 3 Newtons of thrust, NASA's Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, has designed, built and successfully tested a 50 kW-class Hall thruster.
Designated the NASA-457M, this new Hall thruster has shown more than a factor of ten increase in the power and thrust levels over state-of-the-art Hall systems. "This accomplishment strengthens Glenn's world class leadership in Hall thruster research and development," asserts Robert Jankovsky, Hall thruster team lead.
Such a high power propulsion device will revolutionize the next generation of spacecraft; halving launch costs for ambitious NASA missions, enabling future NASA missions to other planets, and more than doubling commercial payload masses to geostationary orbit. Applications for the Hall thruster include moving heavy payloads and more rapid travel into outer space. When compared to ion thrusters, Hall thrusters are of greater benefit to near-Earth orbit missions, because they have greater levels of thrust to counter the forces of gravity of celestial bodies, like the Earth.
The NASA-457M is the largest Hall thruster ever built and tested. This effort has significantly enhanced understanding of Hall thruster scaling and will lead to the use of high power Hall thruster propulsion in future space missions.
Results and findings of the Hall thruster's recent tests were discussed yesterday at the 38th American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Joint Propulsion Conference in Indianapolis.
TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: ion; nasa; propulsion; research
Three Newtons of thrust, pretty impressive.
1
posted on
07/12/2002 4:49:31 PM PDT
by
Brett66
To: RightWhale; anymouse; RadioAstronomer; NonZeroSum; jimkress; discostu; The_Victor; Centurion2000; ..
Interesting ping.
2
posted on
07/12/2002 4:51:04 PM PDT
by
Brett66
To: Brett66
This is definately the way to go, including for asteroid mining. We'll have to scale it up again, maybe a couple of times if our fiscal reports are to look good. Of course any positive annual statements would look good right now.
To: RightWhale
I was looking at the performance stats of Deep space 1 and it's engine could only generate 0.09 Newtons of thrust. 33.3 times the power of DS 1's engine! I wonder what a Megawatt class of engine would produce? Very impressive improvement for a second generation design. If they ever decide to send humans to Mars, I think an engine such as this would quell all talk of using chemical propulsion. Heck, I think this would be a good engine for an orbital transfer vehicle.
4
posted on
07/12/2002 5:05:16 PM PDT
by
Brett66
To: Brett66
I think an engine such as this would quell all talk of using chemical propulsion. Heck, I think this would be a good engine for an orbital transfer vehicle. Of course this would be good for long range probes running off an RTG power source for a few thousand years, but serious thrust ?
Use an Orion drive, the radioactive way to fly.
To: RightWhale
What is a "Hall engine" exactly ?
6
posted on
07/12/2002 5:17:48 PM PDT
by
ChadGore
To: ChadGore
It uses electrical fields to move charged particles out the back end of the rocket. It's way more efficient than burning some fuel and blowing that out the back under hot gas pressure.
To: Centurion2000
This is an excellent engine, a spacecraft using this engine to go to Mars (probably nuclear power source) could probably do it in half the time of a comparable chemical-powered spacecraft. Of course Orion is the Uber-Engine which unfortunately would be plagued by Uber-political problems. Robert Zubrin proposed a Nuclear Salt Water Rocket design that would not be plagued by the problems of the Orion treaty-buster problems. Plus it's operating efficiency would surpass even Orion's capabilities. If Nasa ever gets around to building such a spacecraft, that means they are very serious about manned space exploration, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. ;)
Nuke Your Way to the Stars
8
posted on
07/12/2002 5:32:26 PM PDT
by
Brett66
To: Brett66; Sabertooth; maxwell
Technical guy, interesting kinda ping.
To: MeeknMing; PatrickHenry; Quila; Rudder; donh; VadeRetro; RadioAstronomer; Travis McGee; ...
((((((growl)))))
Comment #11 Removed by Moderator
To: Sabertooth
. . . Also makes great hubcaps for your monster truck.
To: VadeRetro
LOL!
To: Brett66
Just think what they could do if the government wasn't involved!
14
posted on
07/12/2002 8:32:20 PM PDT
by
jimkress
To: Brett66
Thanks for the ping.
Hey, I just noticed, we're praising NASA for this. I gotta double check my bookmark and be sure I'm in the right place. :)
Comment #16 Removed by Moderator
To: Brett66
Did'nt NASA experiment with a fission rocket, or develope an Idea about one, using liquified gas superheated by a nuclear reactor a one time.
17
posted on
07/13/2002 9:07:46 PM PDT
by
Madcelt
To: Madcelt; Brett66
Did'nt NASA experiment with a fission rocket, or develope an Idea about one, using liquified gas superheated by a nuclear reactor a one timeLook up NERVA on a google search :-)
p.s. A freind of mine gave me a liquid hydrogen needle valve from the Nerva progam the he had as a paperweight. :-)
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