Spacecraft rocket engines come in a variety of forms and use a variety of fuels, but most rely on chemical reactions to blast propellants out of a nozzle, with the reaction force driving the ...

You don’t see many ionic thrusters out in the world these days. The high-voltage devices are interesting pieces of technology, but they aren’t all that relevant to our normal lives. They’re gradually ...

Predicting the lifetime of an electric ion thruster is notoriously difficult. You have to account for the chamber wall effects, which are not present in space environments. Researchers within several ...

BepiColombo, the joint ESA/JAXA spacecraft on a mission to Mercury, is now firing its thrusters for the first time in flight. On Sunday, BepiColombo carried out the first successful manoeuver using ...

Demand for electric propulsion is growing for space applications and the proposed technological solutions are evolving fast. Gridded Ion Technology allows a more efficient management of Xe, providing ...

Want to generate some thrust by way of an exposed high voltage discharge that looks great when you turn down the lights? [Integza] has a video showing how to do exactly that with some simple ...

Pale Blue plans to demonstrate its 1U water ion thruster twice in 2025 on D-Orbit’s Ion Satellite Carrier, an orbital transfer vehicle. The contract with D-Orbit includes two launch opportunities and ...

Perhaps a sequential ionic thrust topology is not the way to go. It makes the most sense, but in reality results in dimishing ...

NASA’s Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, will host a Media Opportunity to showcase an ion thruster prototype on Wed., Jan. 25 at 10 a.m. EST. This prototype was built under NASA’s Evolutionary Xenon ...

Monisha Ravisetti was a science writer at CNET. She covered climate change, space rockets, mathematical puzzles, dinosaur bones, black holes, supernovas, and sometimes, the drama of philosophical ...

The BepiColombo spacecraft has permanently deactivated its solar electric propulsion system after an eight year journey. The ...

LYON, France–Ion-X, a startup company betting on the use of ionic micropropulsion for small satellites, is planning to deliver its first commercial motor in 2026. In space operations, new requirements ...