the.com/ion thruster
Whispers your spacecraft forward for years instead of shouting it there in minutes.
means An engine that pushes a spacecraft by electrically charging atoms, accelerating them with an electric field, and shooting them out the back as thrust.
from From Greek 'ion,' meaning 'going' — coined in the 1800s for electrically charged particles that migrate toward an electrode — plus 'thruster,' from 'thrust,' rooted in Old Norse 'thrysta,' to press or force. The technology itself is a 20th-century invention, first seriously tested by space agencies as a low-force, high-endurance alternative to chemical rockets: a slow push of ionized gas instead of a brief violent burn.
- thrust force
- about as strong as a sheet of paper on your hand
- fuel efficiency
- ten times more efficient than chemical rockets
- top speed
- can reach over 200000 mph given enough time
- first flight
- deep space 1 proved it in 1998