{"id":14639,"date":"2018-03-06T07:23:27","date_gmt":"2018-03-06T07:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=14639"},"modified":"2020-05-27T06:06:39","modified_gmt":"2020-05-27T06:06:39","slug":"world-first-firing-air-breathing-electric-thruster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/world-first-firing-air-breathing-electric-thruster\/","title":{"rendered":"World-first firing of air-breathing electric thruster"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Air-breathing ion thruster<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a world-first, an ESA-led team has built and fired an electric thruster to ingest scarce air molecules from the top of the atmosphere for propellant, opening the way to satellites flying in very low orbits for years on end.<\/span><\/p>\n

ESA\u2019s\u00a0GOCE<\/a>\u00a0gravity-mapper flew as low as 250 km for more than five years thanks to an electric thruster that continuously compensated for air drag. However, its working life was limited by the 40 kg of xenon it carried as propellant \u2013 once that was exhausted, the mission was over. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Replacing onboard propellant with atmospheric molecules would create a new class of satellites able to operate in very low orbits for long periods.<\/span><\/p>\n

Air-breathing electric thrusters could also be used at the outer fringes of atmospheres of other planets, drawing on the carbon dioxide of Mars, for instance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Air-breathing space mission<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThis project began with a novel design to scoop up air molecules as propellant from the top of Earth\u2019s atmosphere at around 200 km altitude with a typical speed of 7.8 km\/s,\u201d explains ESA\u2019s Louis Walpot.<\/span><\/p>\n

A complete thruster was developed for testing the concept, which was performed in a vacuum chamber by Sitael in Italy, simulating the environment at 200 km altitude.<\/span><\/p>\n

A \u2018particle flow generator\u2019 provided the oncoming high-speed molecules for collection by the Ram-Electric Propulsion novel intake and thruster.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are no valves or complex parts \u2013 everything works on a simple, passive basis. All that is needed is power to the coils and electrodes, creating an extremely robust drag-compensation system.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Air-breathing electric propulsion<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The challenge was to design a new type of intake to collect the air molecules so that instead of simply bouncing away they are collected and compressed.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The molecules collected by the intake designed by QuinteScience in Poland are given electric charges so that they can be accelerated and ejected to provide thrust.<\/span><\/p>\n

A two-step design ensures better charging of the incoming air, which is harder to achieve than in traditional electric propulsion designs.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe team ran computer simulations on particle behaviour to model all the different intake options,\u201d adds Louis, \u201cbut it all came down to this practical test to know if the combined intake and thruster would work together or not.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Thruster inside vacuum chamber<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cInstead of simply measuring the resulting density at the collector to check the intake design, we decided to attach an electric thruster. In this way, we proved that we could indeed collect and compress the air molecules to a level where thruster ignition could take place, and measure the actual thrust.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt first we checked our thruster could be ignited repeatedly with xenon gathered from the particle beam generator.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

As a next step, Louis explains, the xenon was partially replaced by a nitrogen\u2013oxygen air mixture: \u201cWhen the xenon-based blue colour of the engine plume changed to purple, we knew we\u2019d succeeded.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFinally, the system was ignited repeatedly solely with atmospheric propellant to prove the concept\u2019s feasibility.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis result means air-breathing electric propulsion is no longer simply a theory but a tangible, working concept, ready to be developed, to serve one day as the basis of a new class of missions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

This project was supported through ESA\u2019s\u00a0Technology Research Programme<\/a>\u00a0for developing promising new ideas for space.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a world-first, an ESA-led team has built and fired an electric thruster to ingest scarce air molecules from the top of the atmosphere for propellant, opening the way to satellites flying in very low orbits for years on end. ESA\u2019s\u00a0GOCE\u00a0gravity-mapper flew as low as 250 km for more than five years thanks to an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":14640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-space-news"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Air-breathing_ion_thruster_node_full_image_2.jpg",700,467,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Air-breathing_ion_thruster_node_full_image_2-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Air-breathing_ion_thruster_node_full_image_2-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Air-breathing_ion_thruster_node_full_image_2.jpg",700,467,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Air-breathing_ion_thruster_node_full_image_2.jpg",700,467,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Air-breathing_ion_thruster_node_full_image_2.jpg",700,467,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Air-breathing_ion_thruster_node_full_image_2.jpg",700,467,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Air-breathing_ion_thruster_node_full_image_2.jpg",700,467,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Air-breathing_ion_thruster_node_full_image_2.jpg",700,467,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Air-breathing_ion_thruster_node_full_image_2.jpg",600,400,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Air-breathing_ion_thruster_node_full_image_2.jpg",600,400,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Air-breathing_ion_thruster_node_full_image_2.jpg",700,467,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Air-breathing_ion_thruster_node_full_image_2.jpg",540,360,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Air-breathing_ion_thruster_node_full_image_2.jpg",95,63,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Air-breathing_ion_thruster_node_full_image_2.jpg",640,427,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Air-breathing_ion_thruster_node_full_image_2.jpg",96,64,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Air-breathing_ion_thruster_node_full_image_2.jpg",150,100,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Space\/ AstroPhysics<\/a>","tag_info":"Space\/ AstroPhysics","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}