SOLAR-ion engine T5 powers EU spaceship

by SOLARLIFE | April 20, 2008 at 02:16 pm

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This laboratory in a leafy part of Hampshire is where defence and security firm Qinetiq develops and tests its ion engines - a technology that will take spacecraft to the planets, powered by the Sun.

Ion engines are an "electric propulsion system". They make use of the fact that a current flowing across a magnetic field creates an electric field directed sideways to the current.

This is used to accelerate a beam of ions (charged atoms) of xenon away from the spacecraft, thereby providing thrust.

SOLAR-ion engine T5 powers Europe's Goce spaceship

The ion engine developed by Qinetiq, the T5, will be flown
for the first time on the European Space Agency's Goce
spacecraft. The mission will fly just 200-300km above the
Earth, mapping the tiny variations in its gravity field.

In space, ion engines will draw electric power from
solar panels, generating 1300 Watt, a thrust equivalent to
the weight of a postcard. This incredibly gentle thrust could,
in theory, take a spacecraft beyond our Solar System,
if sustained for long enough.

Qinetiq gets to test its T5 engine for real this summer,
when Goce is launched from the Russian space port of Plesetsk.

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