page_title: Ion thruster
hierarchical_section_title: Ion thruster
caption_attribution_description: English: This image of a xenon ion engine, photographed through a port of the vacuum chamber where it was being tested at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, shows the faint blue glow of charged atoms being emitted from the engine. The ion propulsion engine is the first non-chemical propulsion to be used as the primary means of propelling a spacecraft. The first flight in NASA's New Millennium Program, Deep Space 1 is designed to validate 12 new technologies for scientific space missions of the next century. Ion propulsion was first proposed in the 1950s and NASA performed experiments on this highly efficient propulsion system in the 1960s, but it was not used aboard an American spacecraft until the 1990s. Deep Space 1 was launched in October 1998 as part of NASA's New Millennium Program, which is managed by JPL for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA. The almost imperceptible thrust from the ion propulsion system is equivalent to the pressure exerted by a sheet of paper held in the palm of your hand. The ion engine is very slow to pick up speed, but over the long haul it can deliver 10 times as much thrust per pound of fuel as more traditional rockets. Unlike the fireworks of most chemical rockets using solid or liquid fuels, the ion drive emits only an eerie blue glow as ionized (electrically charged) atoms of xenon are pushed out of the engine. Xenon is the same gas found in photo flash tubes and many lighthouse bulbs. Français&#160;: Propulseur à ion
context_page_description: An ion thruster is a kind of spacecraft engine. It works by using static electricity or magnetism to push ions out the back of the spacecraft. It takes a very long time to speed up, but its fuel lasts much longer than a rocket engine. It has to be carried into outer space by a regular rocket, because the ions don't push hard enough for it to escape the Earth's gravity, but after it gets to outer space it can travel a very long way. An ion thruster needs electricity to run, so the spacecraft has to also carry solar panels or a nuclear reactor.
  In 2011 the NASA space probe called Dawn used an ion thruster to get to the asteroid Vesta. In 2015 the thruster brought it to the dwarf planet Ceres.
context_section_description: An ion thruster is a kind of spacecraft engine. It works by using static electricity or magnetism to push ions (electrically charged atoms) out the back of the spacecraft. It takes a very long time to speed up, but its fuel lasts much longer than a rocket engine. It has to be carried into outer space by a regular rocket, because the ions don't push hard enough for it to escape the Earth's gravity, but after it gets to outer space it can travel a very long way. An ion thruster needs electricity to run, so the spacecraft has to also carry solar panels or a nuclear reactor.
  In 2011 the NASA space probe called Dawn used an ion thruster to get to the asteroid Vesta. In 2015 the thruster brought it to the dwarf planet Ceres.
caption: An ion engine test.
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