(5 hours ago)F2d5thCav Wrote: Has anyone even got a concept for a functional ion drive ? Sounds like something Musk would be interested in deploying for grins.
ETA: https://patents.justia.com/patents-by-us...ion/60/202
NASA used ion thrusters and engines on the Dawn spacecraft which went out to investigate Dwarf Planes Ceres in 2007 then on to Vesta , I think with new technologies like ion engines and AI to pilot a craft we are getting closer to sending a spacecraft out there to investigate potential neighbours , perhaps 3I/Atlas is such a craft checking us out.
Quote:Two ion propulsion engines are required to provide enough thruster lifetime to complete the mission, and the third engine serves as a spare. Since launch the spacecraft has used each of the three ion engines, operating them one at a time. Dawn will use ion propulsion with interruptions of only a few hours each week to turn to point the spacecraft's antenna to Earth. Total thrust time to reach the first science orbit will be 979 days, with more than 2,000 days of thrust through entire the mission. This surpasses Deep Space 1's 678 days of ion propulsion operation by a long shot.
The thrusters work by using an electrical charge to accelerate ions from xenon fuel to a speed 7-10 times that of chemical engines. The electrical power level and xenon fuel feed can be adjusted to throttle each engine up or down in thrust. The engines are thrifty with fuel, using only about 3.25 milligrams of xenon per second (about 10 ounces over 24 hours) at maximum thrust. The Dawn spacecraft carried 425 kilograms (937 pounds) of xenon propellant at launch. Xenon was chosen because it is chemically inert, easily stored in a compact form, and the atoms are relatively heavy so they provide a relatively large thrust compared to other candidate propellants. At launch, the gaseous xenon stored in the fuel tank was 1.5 times the density of water. At maximum thrust, each engine produces a total of 91 millinewtons—about the amount of force involved in holding a single piece of notebook paper in your hand.
https://science.nasa.gov/mission/dawn/te...ropulsion/