Ion Engine Breakthrough Could Take Us To Mars At A Fraction Of The Fuel

Space





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A prototype wall-less Hall thruster firing in a vacuum chamber. CNRS/LAPLACE and CNRS/ICARE

A group of French physicists has optimized a type of ion thruster to significantly extend its lifetime: the new development made it sturdy enough to be able withstand a long trip into deep space. Such a thruster would require 100 million times less fuel than common thrusters that use chemical reactions to propel a spacecraft forward.