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Tiny Ion Engine Runs On Water

Posted by timothy on from the instant-ice-tea-doubles-the-range dept.

symbolset writes "Discovery News is covering a project by two engineers from the University of Michigan to pair cubesats with tiny ion engines for inexpensive interplanetary exploration. The tiny plasma drive called the CubeSat Ambipolar Thruster (CAT) will ionize water and use it as propellant with power provided by solar cells. In addition to scaling down the size of ion engines they hope to bring down the whole cost of development and launch to under $200,000."

5 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. No, it runs on sunlight. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    n/t

    1. Re:No, it runs on sunlight. by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Informative

      The propellant used is incidental, as evidenced by the ion drives that run on xenon, for example.

      Actually, there are *very* good reasons for why specific kinds of engines run on specific kinds of propellants. "Incidental" is hardly the word I'd use.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re:No, it runs on sunlight. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Ease of ionization, mass to charge ratio (something favoring both being xenon), cost, size and ease of storage, scalability of storage (two things apparently favored by water over xenon), long term impact on accelerating grids, ...

  2. Extremely misleading and dishonest headline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    The submitter should be ashamed of itself.

  3. No mention of the kickstarter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Summary makes no mention of the CAT kickstarter campaign for this thing.