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News  Speeding through space with a wisp of gas
For almost half a century, spacecraft crossed the Solar System by burning chemical fuel in rocket engines. Then, in 2004, ESA’s Smart-1 spacecraft reached the Moon using a revolutionary ion engine. Now ESA and the Australian National University have successfully tested an advanced ion engine that is many times more powerful and fuel efficient. Ion engines are a form of electric propulsion. Instead of burning large amounts of oxygen and chemical fuel, they use a small amount of gas, such as xenon, and electricity produced by solar panels. The electric current is used to accelerate a beam of positively charged gas particles (ions) away from the spacecraft. The faster the beam leaves the ion engine, the faster the spacecraft accelerates.
Although the ion exhaust provides such a small thrust that spacecraft take months to reach high speeds, they can eventually overtake any of the heavier spacecraft fitted with traditional engines.
“Using a similar amount of propellant as SMART-1, with the right power supply, a future spacecraft using our new engine design wouldn’t just reach the Moon, it would be able to leave the Solar System entirely,” said Dr. Roger Walker of ESA’s Advanced Concepts Team.
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