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0 pointsjessriedel9y ago0 comments

> However, this is not really 'new' tech. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_1 used an early version in 1998.

As discussed in the article, this is a very different kind of ion thruster. That category is quite large. In particular, I believe essentially all ion thrusters flown have been electrostatic ion thrusters, including both Deep Space 1 and the Hall thrusters discussed in the article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_thruster#Electrostatic_ion...

In contrast, the VASIMR engine discussed in the article is an electromagnetic ion thruster

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_thruster#Electromagnetic_t...

(Apologies if you didn't intend to suggest the tech isn't that new, and just meant that the low-propellant-usage part isn't that new.)

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Retric9y ago

They all need a propellant and power feed. But, you can use those same feeds for an array of multiple engines. Thus, 'scaling up' has a wide range of options and trade-offs. Vasimr let's you scale power output a lot from the same engine, but so would an array of smaller engines.

With that in mind the specific techniques are important, but the gaps are often overstated.

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