ESA and Australian team develop breakthrough in space propulsion
A team from the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Australian National University (ANU) have developed a new 'ion engine' for use in space travel. The new device, known as the Dual-Stage 4-Grid (DS4G), is capable of producing an exhaust plume more than four times the speed of the best-performing ion engine devices available. This represents a fourfold increase in efficiency over those engines, and a tenfold increase in efficiency over the propulsion system used in the current SMART-1 lunar probe. 'Using a similar amount of propellant as SMART-1, with the right power supply, a future spacecraft using our new engine design wouldn't just reach the moon, it would be able to leave the Solar System entirely,' says the project's technical manager, ESA's Dr Roger Walker from the Advanced Concepts Team. 'This is an ultra ion engine. It has exceeded the current crop by many times and opens up a whole new frontier of exploration possibilities,' said Dr Walker. ESA awarded the contract to build the device to the ANU because of its expertise in developing high voltage focused ion beams for the semiconductor industry. The ANU completed the project in five months. The DS4G device works by electric propulsion. A beam of positively-charged ions are accelerated away from the vehicle using an electrical field. Charged 'grids' containing thousands of tiny perforations are attached to a reservoir containing ions. The difference in voltage between two grids propels the ions away from the vehicle, and the faster ions are expelled, the greater the efficiency. In previous designs, ions were found to collide with the grids when differences in voltage approached 5,000 volts, limiting the absolute efficiency of the system. In the DS4G system, the expulsion of ions is carried out in a two-stage process using four grids, overcoming the previous limitations. While the tests have been an unqualified success, the device must now be operated in a vacuum for several thousand hours to simulate conditions in space and establish its reliability. In theory, the design could propel probes outside the solar system in record time, and high power versions could take manned missions to mars. 'The next challenge is to transition this promising new engine design from laboratory experiment to spacecraft flight model, and properly define the new missions,' said ESA's head of propulsion, Jose Gonsalez del Amo.
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