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A crown of 28 pins made of porous tungsten, which holds the liquid metal under surface tension so that it doesn’t degrade, which in turn increases the thrusters lifespan. (One ongoing lifespan test of one emitter crown has shown it still performs after 15 thousand hours of use.) This crown of needles is the most important part of the thruster as the initiation of the ion beam takes place at the edge of each needle.