NASA's NEXT Ion Thruster Runs Five and a Half Years Nonstop To Set New Record 184
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."
Re:Too bad it's at NASA (Score:4, Informative)
Which all but guarantees that this engine will never do anything more.
Sort of like the ion thruster on the Dawn [nasa.gov] probe, which left Vesta about a year ago with an ETA on Ceres sometime in 2015?
Re:Perfect analogy for NASA (Score:5, Informative)
Would it be insufferably pedantic to mention Pioneer 10/11, Explorer 49, Mariner 10, Helios A/B(with Germany), Viking 1 and 2, Voyager 1 and 2, Pioneer Venus 1 and 2, ISEE-3(with EU), Magellan, Galileo, Hubble(with EU), Ulysses(with EU), Mars Observer, Clementine, WIND, NEAR Shoemaker, Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Pathfinder, ACE, Cassini-Huygens(with EU), Lunar Prospector, DS1, Stardust, Mars Odyssey, Genesis, Mars Exploration Rovers, MESSENGER, Deep Impact, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, New Horizons(in transit), STEREO, Pheonix, Dawn, Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter, Solar Dynamics Observatory, Juno, GRAIL, Mars Science Laboratory, and Radiation Belt Storm Probes?
Sure, our man-in-a-can cred isn't what it used to be; but I, for one, welcome our robotic overlords.
1G of thust - you're gonna need a bigger boat (Score:5, Informative)
1G of thrust would require, as you mentioned, almost 10m/s2 of acceleration, or your mass x 10 in Newtons.
NEXT produces 236 mN of thrust at 7kW of power
A typical terrestrial nuclear power plant will produce about 1 GW of power, or enough to power 143,000 of these engines. That would result in 33,700 Newtons of thrust, able to accelerate a spacecraft at 1G weighing 3433kg.
To put that into perspective, those (143,000) engines would burn 2860kg/hr in fuel alone.
Re:Could we achieve 1G of thust. (Score:4, Informative)
Without relativistic effects about a year but, as noted by the sibling poster, relativity gets in the way from the outside observers point of view. And what good is next day delivery if the goods are 1 day old and the recipient's great, great, great, great, great granddaughter has to sign for the package?
Though practically impossible with current or proposed technology, it would, indeed, take only 35 days to reach 0.1c, and we'd be 225 million km from our starting point, ignoring gravitational effects of other bodies. Though in astronomical terms that's not very far (less than the diameter of Earth's orbit) - less than half way to Jupiter on the closest possible approach.
Re:Fools! (Score:5, Informative)
Bzzt you are both wrong. The net acceleration due to this test is zero, because the ions ejected out of the engine are halted by the test chamber. Net result is zero force.