Ion engines | Wikipedia audio article
Channel: wikipedia tts
Date: 05/07/2019

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_thruster


00:02:57 1 Origins
00:05:25 2 General working principle
00:10:25 3 Electrostatic ion thrusters
00:10:35 3.1 Gridded electrostatic ion thrusters
00:12:57 3.2 Hall effect thrusters
00:14:16 3.3 Field-emission electric propulsion
00:15:33 4 Electromagnetic thrusters
00:15:43 4.1 Pulsed inductive thrusters
00:16:51 4.2 Magnetoplasmadynamic thruster
00:18:44 4.3 Electrodeless plasma thrusters
00:19:35 4.4 Helicon double layer thrusters
00:21:20 4.5 VASIMR
00:22:54 4.6 Microwave electrothermal thrusters
00:23:59 5 Radioisotope thruster
00:24:38 6 Comparisons
00:24:47 7 Lifetime
00:27:22 8 Propellants
00:29:10 9 Energy efficiency
00:30:07 10 Missions
00:31:17 10.1 Demonstration vehicles
00:31:27 10.1.1 SERT
00:32:12 10.2 Operational missions
00:33:28 10.2.1 In Earth orbit
00:33:36 10.2.1.1 GOCE
00:34:10 10.2.2 In deep space
00:34:18 10.2.2.1 iDeep Space 1/i
00:35:07 10.2.2.2 iHayabusa/i
00:35:58 10.2.2.3 iSmart 1/i
00:36:35 10.2.2.4 iDawn/i
00:37:17 10.2.3 LISA Pathfinder
00:37:56 10.2.4 BepiColombo
00:38:21 10.3 Planned missions
00:38:30 10.3.1 Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway
00:39:09 10.4 Proposed missions
00:39:18 10.4.1 International Space Station
00:41:28 10.4.2 MARS-CAT
00:42:08 10.4.3 Interstellar probe
00:42:25 11 Popular culture



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SUMMARY
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An ion thruster or ion drive is a form of electric propulsion used for spacecraft propulsion. It creates thrust by accelerating cations by utilizing electricity. The term refers strictly to gridded electrostatic ion thrusters, and is often incorrectly loosely applied to all electric propulsion systems including electromagnetic plasma thrusters.An ion thruster ionizes a neutral gas by extracting some electrons out of atoms, creating a cloud of positive ions. These thrusters rely mainly on electrostatics as ions are accelerated by the Coulomb force along an electric field. Temporarily stored electrons are finally reinjected by a neutralizer in the cloud of ions after it has passed through the electrostatic grid, so the gas becomes neutral again and can freely disperse in space without any further electrical interaction with the thruster. Electromagnetic thrusters on the contrary use the Lorentz force to accelerate all species (free electrons as well as positive and negative ions) in the same direction whatever their electric charge, and are specifically referred as plasma propulsion engines, where the electric field is not in the direction of the acceleration.Ion thrusters in operational use have an input power need of 1–7 kW (1.3–9.4 hp), exhaust velocity 20–50 km/s (45,000–112,000 mph), thrust 25–250 millinewtons (0.090–0.899 ozf) and efficiency 65–80% though experimental versions have achieved 100 kilowatts (130 hp), 5 newtons (1.1 lbf).The Deep Space 1 spacecraft, powered by an ion thruster, changed velocity by 4.3 km/s (9,600 mph) while consuming less than 74 kg (163 lb) of xenon. The Dawn spacecraft broke the record, with a velocity change of 11.5 km/s (26,000 mph).Applications include control of the orientation and position of orbiting satellites (some satellites have dozens of low-power ion thrusters) and use as a main propulsion engine for low-mass robotic space vehicles (such as Deep Space 1 and Dawn).Ion thrust engines are practical only in the vacuum of space and cannot take vehicles through the atmosphere because ion engines do not work in the presence of ions outside the engine. Additionally, the engine's minuscule thrust cannot overcome any significant air resistance. Spacecraft rely on conventional chemical rockets to initially reach orbit.