NASA's NEXT Ion Thruster Runs Five and a Half Years Nonstop To Set New Record

cylonlover writes "Last December, NASA's Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) passed 43,000 hours of operation. But the advanced ion propulsion engine wasn't finished. On Monday, NASA announced that it has now operated for 48,000 hours, or five and a half years, setting a record for the longest test duration of any type of space propulsion system that will be hard to beat."

Perfect analogy for NASA

[Gothmolly]

Running your engines at full power but standing in one spot for 5 years. That pretty much sums up our space program since Apollo.

Specific impulse

[abies]

I wonder if they had felt a specific impulse to switch it off?

Fools!

[Anonymous Coward]

Running that engine for 5 years attached to the planet already caused a diversion of 0.01 on the orbit we have around the sun! That's why the sudden global warming! Tin foil ionic hat

Re:How Fast?

[JTsyo]

F=ma
.236 N = 1000 kg * a
a = .000236 m/s^2

V=V0+a*t
V=(40,000 km/h)/(3600 sec/hr) + (.000236 m/s^2)*(50000 hours *3600 sec/hr)
V=53,591 m/s => 192928 km/hr =>0.00018 c

Re:Specific impulse

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Nah. The lead scientist felt it was ok to let it run as long as they kept a close ion it.