🚀 Hall-effect thrusters to kickstart cosmic revolution

“The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot stay in a cradle forever,” Soviet aerospace engineer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was quoted as saying in the early 1900s.

Today, Tsiolkovsky would arguably say humanity is taking its sweet time. Still, we are edging closer to a future in which humanity will spread its footprint further into deep space.

NASA’s new Hall-effect thruster could lead to a revolution in small spacecraft missions, enabling a whole host of new science objectives throughout the solar system. The space agency also launched an ambitious solar sail mission this week. Let’s dive right into the details.

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AEROSPACE ENGINEERING SPOTLIGHT

NASA’s revolutionary new Hall-effect thruster

NASA could unlock a small spacecraft revolution with its new H71M sub-kilowatt Hall-effect thruster.

The US space agency is partnering with private firms to help develop the technology for a wide range of space applications. Ultimately, it believes it could enable small spacecraft to explore our solar system like never before.

NASA set out to make an electric propulsion system capable of executing high-delta-v maneuvers. This is necessary for small spacecraft to achieve planetary escape velocities and orbit captures. Both of these would allow a small spacecraft to explore the cosmos independently.

According to NASA, such a system will allow a small spacecraft to maneuver from low-Earth orbit (LEO) to the Moon, and even from geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) to Mars.

This could open up a whole host of new scientific objectives for smaller missions. That’s because, as NASA puts it, small spacecraft missions “have been historically limited to scientific targets that align with the primary mission’s launch trajectory.”

Hall-effect thrusters, a form of ion propulsion system, are of course, already widely used in satellites today.

However, NASA’s new system takes the design to the next level. It was painstakingly designed to operate efficiently on low power (sub-kilowatt) while achieving a high-propellant throughput – meaning the system can use a high total mass of propellant over its lifetime.

NASA says the design extends operational lifetimes dramatically, offering over 15,000 hours of operation. It will also allow the types of maneuvers required for small spacecraft

And it won’t be long before we see the technology go to space. Northrop Grumman subsidiary SpaceLogistics will soon put a version of the technology to the test with its own NGHT-1X Hall-effect thruster.

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AERO BULLETIN

Sailing on sunlight

This week, Rocket Lab launched NASA’s ACS3 solar sail mission to low Earth orbit. The mission will test new sail boom materials that could enable much larger solar sails

Here is a brief history of the solar sail, and a look at what it could do for the future of space exploration.

Solar sailing in the 70s

In the mid-1970s, Planetary Society Founder Louis Friedman led a NASA effort to send a solar sail to the Comet Halley. Famous science popularizer and Planetary Society co-founder Carl Sagan promoted the project on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

They proposed an extremely lightweight spacecraft that would fly to the comet using only the momentum of photons – light particles from the Sun – hitting a light sail.

LightSail2 launch

Friedman and Sagan’s mission never materialized, but The Planetary Society never gave up on the idea. In July 2019, The Planetary Society launched its LightSail2 mission to low Earth orbit. Once there, a small CubeSat deployed a mylar solar sail.

The LightSail2 spacecraft made history by raising its own orbit by 1.9 miles (3.2 km), using only the propulsive force of photons. It was the first successful demonstration of solar sail technology.

Lightsail2 exceeds expectations

In an interview with IE in 2022, Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye (of “Science Guy” fame) said the LightSail2 project completely exceeded his expectations.

The light sail mission was originally expected to end in less than a year. Ultimately, it kept the small spacecraft in orbit for more than three years, showing that light sail technology was more resilient than first thought.

NASA’s ACS3 mission

Light sail systems could take small spacecraft to the far reaches of the solar system, and beyond. NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) mission, which launched on Tuesday, aims to demonstrate the adaptability of the technology.

Its new composite booms, made of carbon fiber reinforced polymer, will hopefully demonstrate that future missions can use much larger solar sails to travel far into deep space.

Breakthrough Starshot

Speaking of solar sailing into deep space, a group of engineers and scientists hopes to one day reach our nearest star system using light sail technology. The Breakthrough Starshot project aims to train a million laser beams on a small probe with a light sail.

By doing so, it believes the probe could fly at up to 20 percent of the speed of light. In theory, this would allow a spacecraft to reach Proxima Centauri in 20 years. Funding may be an issue, though, and the mission will rely on new laser technologies that don’t yet exist.