Predicting the lifetime of an electric ion thruster is notoriously difficult ... But because we knew the location origins of the two types of carbon, we could identify them on the other surfaces." ...

On the face of things, not much, but after seeing [Zachary Tong]’s latest video on liquid metal ion thrusters, we see that they seem to have a lot more in common than we’d initially thought.

The AEPS is a solar electric propulsion system that uses xenon as its propellant, much like existing ion engines. Where it differs is in the power output, which should allow it to work as the ...