The lower box is one the earliest spacecraft ion thrusters (from EOS circa 1962), and on top is a new arrival, a modern marvel from the SpaceX Starlink satellites used for on orbit maneuvering. SpaceX has mastered Argon
SpaceX has mastered Argon Hall Effect thrusters, something no one else has been able to do. This affords a higher power density (4.2kW in 2.1kg) and much lower cost gas (about $10 per satellite) than prior designs using Krypton or Xenon. This is one of the early 2023 flight units for@Starlink V2 Mini, and the only one outside the company.
Early ion thrusters cost about $1.2 million.
Something old and something new in electric propulsion 🚀
The lower box is one the earliest spacecraft ion thrusters (from EOS circa 1962), and on top is a new arrival, a modern marvel from the SpaceX Starlink satellites used for on orbit maneuvering. SpaceX has mastered Argon… pic.twitter.com/wksI3AG497— Steve Jurvetson (@FutureJurvetson) December 24, 2024
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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For station keeping, and orbital adjustment, a low impulse high ISP thruster is ideal. 1960s ion engines were gridded, these thrusters are Hall effect.
Your right, it is. If it works, use it, make it work better, but use it!
i feel like an ‘old grump’ in saying this but, Doesn’t it Seem to You that there has become a whole LOT of fluffy-fuzz attached to the SpaceX marketing / infomercial enterprise? So effing self-congratulatory. They’ve MASTERED blah, blah, blah.
RobertC well pointed out that Hall-effect thrusters are barely changed today from what they were in the 1960s. Simple enough … the physics couldn’t be simpler. A big magnet to exert a strong magnetic field, and a bunch of bits to ionize a dribble of passing inert gas to ions. Woohoo.
And again, as RobertC said, this propulsive system is fundamentally a low thrust-for-a-long-time mode device. Which requires a modest amount of electrical power, but for a long time. Solar cells are pretty good. and a big tank of something sufficiently inert. Ideal is the heaviest ion (Xenon), but from a Musk-likes-cheap(est) perspective, Argon is the winner. Its roughly 1% of the Earth’s atmosphere!!! We got an essentially infinite amount of it.
Hall thrusters run about 75% efficient from an energy-input-versus-thrust-output (for a give amount of inert gas) point of view. The only thing upgraded is the magnet: In the 1960s Alnico was the magnet of choice. Now it is ‘rare earth’ cobalt samarium and neodymium. Much stronger magnets (if needed). Stronger magnets don’t necessarily make more efficient thrusters (or, at least, not by appreciably much).
Anyway. Put on my happy clown mask, and declare “YAY! Go SpaceX! Yay!”
I think it’s “old grumpy” to point out, for me, it’s BOTH my age, and the milage. I got a lot of road rash on my old weathered ass. Oh well, I can say, my life was never boring. (Thank God, I can’t think of a worse way to die, then in a state of boredom. Even for this old bastard, that’s not likely…) Anyway, the specific thrust required to go “very fast, very quickly” and will be required to make human space flight medically survivable will require both high thrust and sustained/accelerating momentum. Radio-Frequency-Plasma drives seems to make anyone’s tight little bottom move very fast, very quickly. It also doesn’t require that much energy.
Always a nice “bonus”. Wherever your going, however you get there, getting anywhere with less, is always “more”. But you have to get “some where” before you get cancer, or your bones break. Point? You have to get anywhere fast enough, so when you get “anywhere”, whenever that is, your bones and muscles, let you stand up and walk. By the way, I love SpaceX! I just can’t stand Musk’s politics. Go SpaceX! For Musk? Get a f****** hobby…
In the 1960’s, we didn’t have the (easy) ability to vary the intensity within an accelerator magnet because the “dominant frequency”, (most powerful, or lowest frequency, the latter has a tendency to “go around”, honestly best way to put it, “other” frequencies.) It’s not that any frequency is “better”, it’s just that higher frequency’s loose momentum faster. “Stronger magnets”? Unless you have compartmented magnets, with different frequencies isolated from each other, that’s problematic. Why I’m a fan of plasma propulsion is it accelerates particles of whatever fuel, in a space the size of your arm, from rather slow, to very fast.
What’s so cool (to me, I don’t get out much) is both the specific impulse and velocity are VERY high. And you don’t need more fuel then God to get anywhere in our solar system. (Honestly, would you want THAT bill?)
I’d like to see more work on electrospray thrusters. Basically zero ionization energy required, and the liquids involved are usable over a very high temperature range with a fairly low vapor pressure. And they’re VERY compact, as in can be made chip scale. Brian ran an article about them back in 2018:
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/07/electrospray-ion-drive-scalable-to-thousands-of-times-the-thrust-of-existing-ion-drives.html
It looks like we’re still playing with ion engine technologies (regardless of the accelerated gas, argon, zenon, who cares?) Same technology, just a different gas does not change the metric. Ion engine’s, regardless of what fuel they use, are very efficient at going very fast not quickly, for eventually for a very long time. Ion power is great for unmanned probes, that don’t have human crews, that don’t have to worry about lack of gravity, or exposure to solar/cosmic radiation.
Us humans MUST worry about getting wherever, as fast as possible. Spending six or more months in space to get humans to Mar’s is crazy. If the lack of gravity doesn’t kill you, the radiation will, perhaps painfully kill one eventually. Short of using nuclear bombs exploding behind the butts of our rockets (not a bad idea actually, just seems (IMO) internationally complicated) But we have other options. Starting with Radio-Frequency plasma-Drive. Two things you must have to move people fast as fast as possible as quickly as possible.
And keep their moving as fast possible, for the longest period of time. One reason a rocket takes off from Earth is it has a high “specific impulse”. The energy it puts out is translated into thrust (a physical force converted into energy that will change the energy affecting an object, as quickly as possible) So how do we get the best worlds? Go quick and go very fast, for a long time? RF plasma technology may make it happen. It won’t be powerful enough to get you off Earth (far as I know)
But will give you a lovely kick in the ass to get you to Mars in 39 days. And to the moon? Haven’t done the calculations. But I’m sure it’s less then then the 3 and plus days the Apollo dudes had to deal with.
All electric propulsion in space is limited by available power. Going fast is not a problem at all with electric propulsion; powering that wish list is the problem. 1MW space reactor is at the edge of technologically possible; big chemical rocket engine power is in low GW range. The big question is obvious: why SpaceX has no nuclear project for space and Mars?
The biggest question is not really a question: anyone who wants to go fast, use brachistochrone orbits, should be working on aneutronic He3-He3 fusion rocket. Without it, the Void is and will remain for robots only.
Oh, please, don’t ask me what SpaceX is doing, I have no idea. (They don’t talk to me). I must disagree with your statement being based on “available power”. Actuality how fast or long you go is not based on what “power” you have. Nuclear or solar power can give you enough “juice” to kick serious ass, if you know how to apply that to engine technology. The two big problems we have in space propulsion is first, getting up to enough speed fast enough (to like get out of the Earths gravity) but then to give you enough of a “kick start” to get you wherever you want to go, in a reasonable period of time. An so it goes…
Our “ability” to get anywhere in our solar system is NOT based on our available power, but our propulsion technologies.
“The big question is obvious: why SpaceX has no nuclear project for space and Mars?”
They’ve been fighting the regulators hard enough just with chemical rocketry; As soon as they add nuclear to the mix, the regulatory environment gets exponentially harder, and Musk’s Green supporters from his EV and solar roof initiatives peel off.
And, unless you go with thermal nuclear, nuclear isn’t that much better than solar so long as you don’t get further from the Sun than Mars, due to the need for heavy radiators. And you can’t in the present regulatory environment pursue thermal nuclear beyond lab studies.
And you’d need the chemical rocketry anyway, because nobody is going to be permitted to use nuclear rockets from Earth to orbit.
Serious nuclear rocketry will have to wait until we have a substantial society in space, that doesn’t have to humor Earthly regulators.
As long as it is the state that has to clean up any disaster, the state will make the regulations,
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I doubt the regulations would be less if you pushed it to an insurance company. That would have to prove they could buy Miami, in a worst case situation.