NASA Gives Solar Ionic Propulsion A Monster Boost (networkworld.com)

coondoggie quotes a report from Network World: NASA this week took a giant step toward using solar electric power for future space missions by awarding a $67 million contract to Aerojet Rocketdyne to develop an advanced electric propulsion system. Network World writes, "Specifically, Aerojet Rocketdyne will develop and deliver an integrated electric propulsion system -- known as the Advanced Electric Propulsion System (AEPS) -- consisting of a thruster, power processing unit (PPU), low-pressure xenon flow controller, and electrical harness. Such a system would deploy large solar arrays that can be used to convert sunlight into electrical power that ionizes atoms of xenon which is the propellant for the spacecraftâ(TM)s thrusters. In addition, such a power plant could potentially increase spaceflight fuel efficiency by 10 times over current chemical propulsion technology and more than double thrust capability compared to current electric propulsion systems, NASA said." NASA's plan is to use this propulsion system on its future Asteroid Redirect Mission, as well as on its mission to Mars.

Comments

What is a "spacecraftâ(TM)s thruster?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Well?

Re:What is a "spacecraftâ(TM)s thruster?"

[Anonymous Coward]

I think /. is waiting on UTF-9.

Re:What is a "spacecraftâ(TM)s thruster?"

[Anonymous Coward]

I figured it was their new trademarked name, you know almost a symbol instead of a word...

But I can't help but wonder how much xenon they plan on carrying

Re:What is a "spacecraftâ(TM)s thruster?"

[Anonymous Coward]

At least enough for two spacecraftâ(TM)s thrusters, I'd wager.

Re:What is a "spacecraftâ(TM)s thruster?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, soylentnews.org isn't.

Re:What is a "spacecraftâ(TM)s thruster?"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an alien language for describing an alien technology, piped through a deep stack of translator matrices.

Re:What is a "spacecraftâ(TM)s thruster?"

[Anonymous Coward]

while also waiting for users to use it.

'monster' ?

[sittingnut]

"NASA Gives Solar Ionic Propulsion A Monster Boost " !?

how much energy does "monster" metabolism create ? how much horse power? more than 1 horse?
and what do they eat? flesh? blood? hay? oats?

Re:'monster' ?

[Camel Pilot]

Monster is about the size of one Library of Congress

Worked one time for Rocketdyne on the SSME... started one month before the Challenger. Not good timing. Rocketdyne spent the next few months under suspicion as the cause for the accident. I help prepare a report to Richard Feynman during the investigation. I use to walk the executive corridors at lunch and marveled at some of the pictures on the walls of cool past research engines like Nerva a Nuclear powered engine and of course the massive Saturn 5 engines.

Re:'monster' ?

[fred911]

Monster as a qualifier cam be described as more than mondo and less than gianormous. Thanks for asking.

Re:'monster' ?

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC, Feynman had some not so nice things to say about the engines. Something about whistling that engineers ignored. I think it was Feynman. Anyway, that's scary stuff to be suspected of. The engines are super impressive though.

Re:'monster' ?

[Anonymous Coward]

And what will NASA's flying cars mean for Elon Musk's self driving buses proposal?

Re:'monster' ?

[mukinrestak]

I'm more worried about the name "Monster Boost" itself. How the hell are we going to affords the trademark lawsuits from monster cables?

Re:'monster' ?

[Applehu Akbar]

"Monster as a qualifier cam be described as more than mondo and less than gianormous. Thanks for asking."

Hopefully it's not 'monster' in the sense of 'cable'.

Monster Boost

[Anonymous Coward]

What, now even the rocket scientists at NASA are buying overpriced cables at Bsst Buy?

Dear NASA

[Anonymous Coward]

Your pages are, as of last, just black holes to me. Sad as it is, I'll turn to other, better pages.

Regards
-- a former fan of yours.

'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[kheldan]

I'd like to know how you can talk about a drive system being '10 times more efficient' when it's 'fuel' is one of the rarest gasses in Earth's atmosphere? Shall we just design a spacecraft drive system that uses giant diamonds or something instead, so it'd be cheaper and easier to obtain fuel?

Re:'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[ControlFreal]

It's all about delta-v, not about the occurence of said gasses on Earth.

Rockets work, whether we like it our not, according to the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation: the delta-v you can obtain it only logarithmic in your start mass / payload fraction, but linear in your exhaust velocity. That velocity is in ~3 km/s for chemical rockets, but 20-50 km/s for ion engines. That allows you to push a probe/ship from LEO into a transfer orbit using a massively lighter ship, which in turn allow you to launch that into orbit using a massively smaller launch vehicle.

Re:'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[LordWabbit2]

Well diamonds were perhaps a bad example, since we can make them now in such fine quality that it's almost impossible to distinguish from the real thing.

Re:'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[HeadSoft]

Ions Are Forever.

Re:'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[Anonymous Coward]

it's almost impossible to distinguish from the real thing.

Two things:
0. Lab created diamonds are REAL diamonds.
1. Even low quality lab created diamonds are usually MORE pure than the "real thing", and detecting the impurities and imperfections is how we identify the more expensive, poorer quality, naturally occurring diamonds (which may have cost some poor black peoples their lives).

"Oh, I love you so much I didn't buy a cheaper more pure and lab created Diamond, I made sure some African's blood was spilled for this more expensive naturally occurring diamond. This ring killed a nigger. Marry me."

Re:'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[Anonymous Coward]

Ten thousand Xenon nuclei, when all you need is an electron- isn't it ionic; don't you think? /ducks

Re:'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[Anonymous Coward]

If we could make an extra-apostrophe powered rocket, we'd be able to conquer Andromeda by now.

PS: it's means it is

Re:'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[Eloking]

I'd like to know how you can talk about a drive system being '10 times more efficient' when it's 'fuel' is one of the rarest gasses in Earth's atmosphere? Shall we just design a spacecraft drive system that uses giant diamonds or something instead, so it'd be cheaper and easier to obtain fuel?

Am I missing something extremely obvious or being "10 time more efficient" mean that we can use 10 time less of the said rare gas?

But why are we using Ionic propulsion system already? Well, because it is, AFAIK, by FAR the most efficient propulsion system in term of fuel weight/energy in use today.

But if you got an idea for an engine more efficient that a different and less rare fuel, I'm all ears. But it'll have to come before we start mining space and other planet (I've read that there's a lot of xenon in Jupiter's atmosphere?)

Re:'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[LWATCDR]

It uses a small about of Xeon I think the Dawn spacecraft used less than 500 grams for it's mission.

I am wondering if why we are not seeing these used on spysats. You could have then at a lower orbit if you used an ion engine to cancel out the additional drag.

Re:'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[Anonymous Coward]

It might be relatively rare (1 part in 20 million) but there's a lot of atmosphere. At $120 per 100g (thanks Google) it's significantly cheaper than giant diamonds. Given the cost to put a satellite in orbit the price of a few kg of xenon is still minimal. As for efficiency that's not a measure of what it took to obtain the fuel because that's outside of the system it's being used in. It's a measure of for X amount of fuel how much usable energy does it produce (speed/acceleration) and therefore in space how good a fuel is it to power a satellite/probe/ship/whatever.

Re:'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[Anonymous Coward]

Since all diamonds are simply carbon atoms arranged in the correct type of crystal, even if produced synthetically how exactly are they ever not the real thing? :) If the atoms are all the same it really doesn't matter if they were created in the earth or a lab, if they're the same thing there's no 'distinguishing' them - they are the same thing.

Re:'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[Anonymous Coward]

Because spysats use AMD, obviously.

Re:'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Ten thousand Xenon nuclei, when all you need is an electron- isn't it ionic; don't you think? /ducks

It's a fee riiiiiiiiiide...when someone else is forced to pay FEEL THE BERN!

Re:'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[LWATCDR]

I hate autocorrect Xenon.

Re:'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a big fan of a much newer ion engine than hall effect thrusters like this one. It's the helicon double layer thruster. It's been tested successfully with a number of different gasses, including krypton and argon (which is dirt cheap). It also works with hydrogen, a waste product of manned spacecraft. It's main advantage over hall effect thrusters is that it won't wear out nearly as fast as most other ion thrusters - it could last for 50 years. You could get a lot done with solar panels, this engine, and a really big tank of argon.

Re:'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[Anonymous Coward]

The xenon doesn't produce any energy (that's what the solar panel does) it exports momentum. It's efficiency is measured in delta-v. Which is the total acceleration the engine can produce before running out of xenon.

Re:'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[kheldan]

Congratulations, AC, you're the only commentor in this thread that actually understands the question I was asking! 1E+6 Internets are awarded to you!

Being as unaware as I was about the quantity of said Xenon gas required in a typical application of this particular type of thruster, I assumed the quantity was significantly larger than I've now heard by at least an order of magnitude or two. Now that I have that information I see that it's not totally unrealistic.

Re:'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[Rei]

Xenon isn't used because it's a fundamental requirement - it's used because the cost of the fuel is basically irrelevant compared to the costs to launch it to orbit, and xenon provides (by a rather small margin) the best performance. But you can use all sorts of gases. You could use argon if you wanted and it wouldn't have much of an impact on performance. Even hydrogen is sometimes used.

Re:'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[Anonymous Coward]

The old NEXT ion thruster on the Dawn spacecraft had an exhaust velocity of 40 km/s. TFA says that this will be 10x more efficient -- so does that mean 400 km/s exhaust velocity (40000s Isp)?

Re:'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[Anonymous Coward]

If you could make an engine that could work on diamond would be an insanely efficient fuel. The two biggest "efficiency" aspects of a rocket engine are the density of the fuel you have (both in terms of mass and volume) and how fast you can exhaust it. I think I remember a Scifi series using industrial diamond as a fuel for their engines (Aliens I think). And diamond by the way is not overly rare, especially the smaller you get (powders, grains, etc). It is often found in drill bits, polishing materials, cutting blades, etc.

Re:'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad you're finally realizing the significance of all the corporate welfare that goes on in the USA. They've had their free ride, with us paying the bill, for long enough.

Re:'10 times more efficient' and xenon gas

[Coren22]

I always assumed that the Mass of Xenon was the primary reason it was used. Is that not the case?

Speeding H^2 up to 40 km/s doesn't impart nearly the same momentum as Xe^2, though I suppose you could likely fit more H^2 on a spacecraft for the same volume/mass.

Cancel NASA!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I just bought a telescope on Amazon :P

Re: ASSFART!!!!!`

[Anonymous Coward]

We fuck rape motherfuckers around world! Global assfuckers united 5000 that what the us of a is all about. Wooooo

PPU?

[Z80a]

Will it propel itself with 8x8, 2bit indexed color tiles?

Clickbait

[justthinkit]

Clickbait article is clickbait.

Xenon drive has been around since the 1950s

The article's touted monster gain -- ten times better than chemical rockets -- is the same ten times gain NASA has been using in actually-launched-into-space rockets for years, if not tens of years.

The article talks about a $65M program to try to make even greater gains...and provides zero details. Probably because making "huge" gains in a technology that is over sixty years old ain't easy.

In summary, this article is about as interesting as GM announcing they are working to make fuel injectors ten times better than carburetors.

Re:Clickbait

[ceoyoyo]

Building an ion propulsion engine big enough to be used on a manned mission is a pretty big boost. Rocket engines have been used for a couple thousand years, but building one big enough to put humans into space was kind of a big development.

Re:Clickbait

[Rei]

For a long time it was assumed that nuclear was going to be the only realistic option for providing power to large ion engines. But the power / mass ratio on space solar has really been rising fast in recent years - look at ATK ultraflex / megaflex for examples. More and more, instead of rigid arrays, they're using unfoldable flexible arrays. They still have high cell efficiencies, but the masses are a tiny fraction of what they used to be.

Re: why xenon gas

[Henarchaga]

I had the same question, and found the answer readily enough in layman's terms on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....

It seems like there are three key reasons (which I am listing also in layman's terms):

1) As a "noble gas" xenon is typically inert, which reduces corrosion in storage and long-term usage as a thruster fuel
2) The gas can be stored in liquid form (more dense) at room temperature, unlike liquid oxygen or hydrogen, which makes it easier to transport and handle
3) It is far up enough on the periodic table that its electron shells can be excited with less energy input than other inert gases, making it more ideal for low-power
systems such as the solar panels that power the ion engine.

Bear in mind that I may be interpreting those wrong, but I do only have two years of university chemistry.

What about VASIMR?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are they spending big money on old tech (Hall thrusters) instead of giving a boost to new tech (VASIMR) which would actually be practical in taking people to Mars and elsewhere in much shorter amounts of time? Smells like politics at work here.

Re:What about VASIMR?

[Anonymous Coward]

Each probably have their applications (assuming actual production models live up tho their hype). VASIMR requires quite a bit of power, but also produces quite a bit of thrust. This appears to require less power and is probably more efficient, but has correspondingly less thrust.

Unruh - emDrive Propulsion

[Anonymous Coward]

Just in time for Warp drive to leave them all in the dust.

Re: why xenon gas

[kheldan]

I have zero years of chemistry classes; I've never taken one. Doesn't mean I can't understand the subject if you explain it to me.

Thank you for making an informative, non-sarcastic, non-pedantic comment in this thread. :-)

better get it moving

[Anonymous Coward]

If they can't develop this ionic drive quickly enough, Nasa's gonna give up on them and work on their fancy new EM-drive...