A GESS‑2 engineer is overseeing the development of an ion engine for GRC. This engine has now accumulated more than 11,600 hours of operation and has processed over 237 kilograms of xenon, setting a record for most propellant throughput ever demonstrated by an
ion engine. This engine is the critical component of NASA’s Evolutionary
Xenon Thruster (NEXT) system, which uses xenon gas and solar electric power to drive future robotic science spacecraft to distant asteroids, comets, planets and their moons as well as the sun. The ion thruster demonstrated nearly 10 million Newton-seconds total impulse, the highest total impulse ever demonstrated by an ion engine in the history of space propulsion.
Image: NASA’s Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) operating
in VF16 for the ongoing Long-Duration Test (LDT).
A GESS‑2 engineer is overseeing the development of an ion engine for GRC. This engine has now accumulated more than 11,600 hours of operation and has processed over 237 kilograms of xenon, setting a record for most propellant throughput ever demonstrated by an
ion engine. This engine is the critical component of NASA’s Evolutionary
Xenon Thruster (NEXT) system, which uses xenon gas and solar electric power to drive future robotic science spacecraft to distant asteroids, comets, planets and their moons as well as the sun. The ion thruster demonstrated nearly 10 million Newton-seconds total impulse, the highest total impulse ever demonstrated by an ion engine in the history of space propulsion.