Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Space

Iodine-Powered Satellite Successfully Tested In Space For First Time (newscientist.com) 51

Tesseractic shares a report from New Scientist, written by Chen Ly: A satellite has been successfully powered by iodine for the first time. Iodine performed better than the traditional propellant of choice, xenon -- highlighting iodine's potential utility for future space missions. Currently, xenon is the main propellant used in electric propulsion systems, but the chemical is rare and expensive to produce. As a gas, xenon must also be stored at very high pressures, which requires specialized equipment. Iodine has a similar atomic mass to xenon but is more abundant and much cheaper. It can also be stored as an unpressurised solid, meaning it has the potential to simplify satellite designs.

Dmytro Rafalskyi at ThrustMe, a space technology company based in France, and his colleagues have developed an electric propulsion system that uses iodine. The propulsion system first heats up a solid block of iodine, turning it into a gas. The gas is bombarded with high-speed electrons, which turns it into a plasma of iodine ions and free electrons. Negatively charged hardware then accelerates the positively charged iodine ions from the plasma towards the system's exhaust and propels the spacecraft forwards. [...] The group found that the iodine system slightly outperformed xenon systems, with a higher overall energy efficiency, which showcases the viability of iodine as a propellant.
"There are some difficulties with iodine that need to be addressed says Rafalskyi," the report adds. "For example, iodine reacts with most metals, so the team had to use ceramics and polymers to protect parts of the propulsion system. In addition, solid iodine takes about 10 minutes to turn into a plasma, which may not provide a propellant quickly enough for emergency maneuvers to avoid an in-orbit collisions."

The research has been published in the journal Nature.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Iodine-Powered Satellite Successfully Tested In Space For First Time

Comments Filter:
  • ThrustMe?! (Score:4, Funny)

    by memory_register ( 6248354 ) on Thursday November 18, 2021 @11:10PM (#62000945)
    What is an unfortunately named propellant company for $400 Alex..
    • Re:ThrustMe?! (Score:4, Informative)

      by quenda ( 644621 ) on Thursday November 18, 2021 @11:50PM (#62000987)

      They are French, and French does not have a "Th" sound. (We English stole the sound from the Greeks, but neglected to add the letter theta to the latin alphabet.)
      So when French (or other Europeans) try to say "thrust", it probably sounds like "trust", hence the play on words "trust me".

      Rocket scientists have a quirky sense of humour. Just check out all the names of craft at SpaceX or Rocketlabs.
      "BFR" was so much better than "Starship", don't you think?

      • Im not sure thats better lol.

        "Trust me" is a line that usually raises my suspicions. Its the language of car salesmen.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The private space companies tend to pick names that exaggerate their products. Virgin Galactic can barely get to orbit, Starship doesn't travel the stars and is only designed for operation within our solar system.

        Actually for once Bezos didn't exaggerate with New Shepard, named after the first American to make a similar non-orbital flight.

        • by quenda ( 644621 )

          Virgin Galactic does *not* get to orbit. Not even close. Virgin Orbit is a different company :)

    • It wouldn't surprise me if this innuendo was deliberate to get people's attention and not forget about the company.

      Guess what, it worked.

        Of course, the effectiveness will dwindle when every "mee too" company gives themselves a suggestive name, with the end result of people thinking that a bunch of adult industry enterprises suddenly appeared.

      • Here's a prior example:

          I saw a billboard that was posted upside down several years ago. It made me stop and wonder how they could've screwed up on this scale and not notice. Then more and more billboards were posted this way. People caught on to why they were doing this, and no longer took notice of the ads. Now there are no upside down billboards.

  • Electrons accumulate on the spaceship. Does it matter? Maybe not as long as they are distributed evenly?

    • It does, and so they don't. If they did, it'd make it harder and harder to expel the positive ions, as they'd get more and more attracted to the rest of the craft. The electrons are injected downstream in order to neutralize the ion beam.
  • by yo303 ( 558777 ) on Friday November 19, 2021 @02:17AM (#62001105)

    I've been putting rocket fuel on my wounds this whole time?

  • Put two of these together and you have a twin ion engine...
  • by Traf-O-Data-Hater ( 858971 ) on Friday November 19, 2021 @06:08AM (#62001361)
    ...This satellite will be in good stead for the inevitable cuts, scrapes and bruises from a nearby anti-sat test.
  • Ten minutes is a long time to wait to move, but if you can contain the plasma indefinitely it won't matter. So, how long can they hold it?
    • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

      Ten minutes is a long time to wait to move, but if you can contain the plasma indefinitely it won't matter. So, how long can they hold it?

      The whole point of an ion engine, of course, is that you want to not hold onto the plasma, but eject it as rapidly as possible...

  • They are sterilizing the vacuum of space.

  • it really annoys me when people misuse that term. If the cited thing isn't being used to store energy, then it's not powering anything. For that you need to be using "driven by"

    In the case of rocket fuel, the hydrogen and lox are both the power and the propellant. But in the case of these sorts of engines, they're almost all "powered" by the sun, and use electricity to accelerate xenon as the "propellant". That doesn't make them "powered by xenon". Powered by solar, driven by xenon. "Driven by" could

    • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

      it really annoys me when people misuse that term. If the cited thing isn't being used to store energy, then it's not powering anything. For that you need to be using "driven by"

      Turns out that headline writers don't use technical terminology in a way that's technically correct.

      Who knew?

    • My car is powered by wheels. Or maybe friction?

    • If the cited thing isn't being used to store energy, then it's not powering anything⦠Like old locomotives, they aren't "powered by" steam. They're POWERED by oil, coal, or wood.

      Significant energy is stored in the steam and furnace (stored energy as heat), and the locomotive still can move for a long time after running out of fuel (coal etc). But I take your point.

      • by v1 ( 525388 )

        You can get more specific about "powered with" by limiting it to "the form of the external energy being added to the device".

        There will often be many intermediate forms the energy takes, including electrical rotational, radiation, pressure, chemical, tension, etc, before the power does the "work" it was intended for. That's what makes up the "energy drive train" of the device. ie a car with solar panels on it is powered by solar, but is driven by battery, electricity, motor, tires, etc. (in that case I

  • Scanned TFA and it makes great sense. Iodine is much more prevalent than Xenon, can be stored as a solid and may provide better maneuverability. This is the kind of tech China will use to mine Helium 3 rocks from the moon; two space cargo shuttles could power the US for a year.

    From TFA.

    "Given the rapid growth of small satellites in low Earth orbit, a miniaturized propulsion system enabled by the use of iodine will provide such satellites with the capability to avoid potential collisions and to deor

Happiness is a positive cash flow.

Working...