The ion thruster, fueled by xenon gas, ran for a total of 16,265 hours during the mission, providing a total change in velocity (delta-V) of 4.3 kilometers per second, the largest for any ...

Chemical rockets have powered humanity’s journey into space for decades. Their explosive thrust is essential for launch, but in the vacuum of space, these systems quickly burn through fuel, making ...

"Ion propulsion has come of age now," said John Brophy, project element manager for the Dawn ion propulsion system at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "It has been around for a long time.

When [Jay Bowles] demoed his first-generation ion thruster on Plasma Channel, the resulting video picked up millions of views and got hobbyists and professionals alike talking.While ionic lifters ...

An ion thruster (or ion drive), one of several types of spacecraft propulsion, uses beams of ions - electrically charged atoms or molecules - for propulsion. The precise method for accelerating ...

And, by some measures, it outperformed a xenon-based thruster by 50 percent. Space-based demo Working hardware was flown on a 12-unit cubesat weighing about 20 kilograms called Beihangkongshi-1.

The ion propulsion engine on NASA's Deep Space 1 probe has been running for more than 200 days since the craft's launch in October 1998, propelling the tiny spacecraft more than 206 million miles ...

Ion Propulsion - The Plane With No Moving Parts. Posted: December 20, 2024 | Last updated: March 5, 2025. Imagine a plane with no moving parts, no noise, and reduced maintenance costs.

The AEPS engines are more than twice as powerful as current in-space ion thrusters. NASA and Aerojet Rocketdyne are taking a big step in testing a new ion propulsion engine that will help power ...