Once free of the Earth's gravity, the rocket can use the
ion engine to achieve very high speed even though the thrust is measured in ounces of force.
While Dawn needed to make several changes in its direction while spiraling between most previous orbits at Ceres, engineers have figured out a way for the spacecraft to arrive at this next orbit while the
ion engine thrusts in the same direction that Dawn is already going.
As any "Star Wars" fan would tell you, TIE stands for Twin
Ion Engine.
Solar sails fall into the same category as
ion engine technology in that they are very low thrust, but highly efficient.
Our spaceships are equipped with
ion engine and atomic weapons.
He said it only has a small, putt-putt
ion engine on it that's good for fine maneuvers, but it's not good for getting it out of harm's way, so this one was definitely going to come down at some point or other.
Unlike most spacecraft, which use thrusters to adjust their orbits, it has a highly efficient propulsion system called an
ion engine.
It stays aloft thanks to an
ion engine that began with a stock of 41 kilos (90.
Because of this, the team already has their sights set on the next ion thruster design, an annular
ion engine, which should provide an answer to this problem.
THE slowest mission to the Moon was the ESA SMART-1 lunar probe which was launched on September 27, 2003, powered by an
ion engine.
There were times I almost felt defeated and wondered about waving the white flag,Ao Hitoshi Kuninaka, designer and engineer for the
ion engine, told a JAXA interviewer just before the landing back on Earth.
In early February 2009 this probe ignited a single
ion engine to begin pulsing it for up to 8 000 hours to propel it back towards the Earth.
