[Brett66]

This new class of NEP thrusters will offer substantial performance advantages over the ion engine flown on Deep Space 1 in 1999. Overall improvements include up to a factor of 10 or more in power; a factor of two to three in fuel efficiency; a factor of four to five in grid voltage; a factor of five to eight in thruster lifetime; and a 30 percent improvement in overall thruster efficiency.

Ok, I'm impressed.

[RadioAstronomer]

Now this is cool! :-)

[LasVegasMac]

Cool.

I just want to be around when they say,..

"Warp Factor 1 - engage!"

NASA seems to have been overcome by that age old nemisis of too many chiefs. Hopefully, this is a step - a solid step - towards the future.

Oh yea, don't forget about that little "meter vs foot" thing this time, ok? Sheese.

LVM

[Brett66]

I wonder what the full potential of this technology could be if we got serious and invested a couple billion a year in the development of ion propulsion. Deep Space1 put out 90 millinewtons of thrust, this is putting out around .9 Newtons of thrust with an ISP of >6000. Could we get this past 10,000-20,000 ISP with around 100 Newtons of thrust? A technology definitely worth investigating.

[Frank_Discussion]

I am, too. I never thought NEP's could acheive that performance while maintaining such long service lives. This is a very good thing Glenn Research Center has done.

VASIMR is still better, as the service life is still higher and it is vastly more powerful, perhaps 10 MEGA-watt (not 25 KILO) in the first operational engine.

But Prometheus will be well served by an engine such as the one in this article. I wonder what a Mars mission profile looks like with this system?