03-11-2003, 02:09
Camdean Space Developement team revealed that the CST - Ion engine has been finished, after 20 years working on this project they have finally fitted it to one of Camdeans big military vessels that are currently in space, the Ark-Royal 1 is the first ship to be fitted with this engine and reports say that the engine has prooved worthwhile and they will continue to fit the whole space fleet with these engines.
The Ark-Royal 1
http://www.mypicplace.com/userpics/15644012743f20b2667c847c0598deea8d6a7ca68815b0cf4b98343.JPG
The principle behind an ion propulsion engine is much the same as what you experience when you pull hot socks out of the clothes dryer on a cold winter day. The socks stick together or push away from each other because they are electrostatically charged. The challenge in electric space propulsion is to charge a fluid so its atoms can be expelled in one direction, and thus propel the spacecraft in the other direction.
The ion propulsion fuel used by the experimental Deep Space 1 spacecraft is xenon, a gas that is more than 4 times heavier than air. When the ion engine is running, electrons are emitted from a hollow tube called a cathode. These electrons enter a magnet-ringed chamber, where they strike the xenon atoms. The impact of an electron on a xenon atom knocks away one of xenon's 54 electrons. This results in a xenon atom with a positive charge, or what is known as an ion.
At the rear of the chamber, a pair of metal grids is charged positively and negatively, respectively, with up to 1,000 volts of electricity. The force of this electric charge exerts a strong electrostatic pull on the xenon ions. When the ion engine is running, xenon atoms with a positive charge shoot out the back of the engine at a speed of 90,000 mph. At full throttle, the ion engine consumes 1,500 watts of electrical power and puts out just 1/25th of a pound of thrust. That's far less than the thrust of even small chemical rockets. But if an ion engine can be made to run for months or even years, the tiny, constant thrust adds up to substantially reduced flight times. Plus, these engines are up to 20 times more efficient than chemical rockets.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/images/ionpropulsion/ionengine.gif
Rockets powered by electric propulsion systems cannot generate enough thrust to lift their own weight. A chemically powered launch vehicle, however, can lift an upper stage that carries a spacecraft powered by ion propulsion.
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The Ark-Royal 1
http://www.mypicplace.com/userpics/15644012743f20b2667c847c0598deea8d6a7ca68815b0cf4b98343.JPG
The principle behind an ion propulsion engine is much the same as what you experience when you pull hot socks out of the clothes dryer on a cold winter day. The socks stick together or push away from each other because they are electrostatically charged. The challenge in electric space propulsion is to charge a fluid so its atoms can be expelled in one direction, and thus propel the spacecraft in the other direction.
The ion propulsion fuel used by the experimental Deep Space 1 spacecraft is xenon, a gas that is more than 4 times heavier than air. When the ion engine is running, electrons are emitted from a hollow tube called a cathode. These electrons enter a magnet-ringed chamber, where they strike the xenon atoms. The impact of an electron on a xenon atom knocks away one of xenon's 54 electrons. This results in a xenon atom with a positive charge, or what is known as an ion.
At the rear of the chamber, a pair of metal grids is charged positively and negatively, respectively, with up to 1,000 volts of electricity. The force of this electric charge exerts a strong electrostatic pull on the xenon ions. When the ion engine is running, xenon atoms with a positive charge shoot out the back of the engine at a speed of 90,000 mph. At full throttle, the ion engine consumes 1,500 watts of electrical power and puts out just 1/25th of a pound of thrust. That's far less than the thrust of even small chemical rockets. But if an ion engine can be made to run for months or even years, the tiny, constant thrust adds up to substantially reduced flight times. Plus, these engines are up to 20 times more efficient than chemical rockets.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/images/ionpropulsion/ionengine.gif
Rockets powered by electric propulsion systems cannot generate enough thrust to lift their own weight. A chemically powered launch vehicle, however, can lift an upper stage that carries a spacecraft powered by ion propulsion.
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