To understand why, you need to know two things: how ion drive works and how the engines differ when using them in an atmosphere. Let’s start with a space-based ion engine, a topic we’ve ...

Ion engines won’t get you out of Earth’s gravity well, nor do they work in the atmosphere, but become useful when you’re in the vacuum of space. Credit: NASA, public domain Before we dive ...

While these massive devices are marvels of human engineering, the real workhorses of the space industry are the immensely ...

Dawn is not propelled by a chemical rocket engine, but by a solar-electric ion propulsion system, particularly suitable for long-distance flights. This innovative propulsion concept was first used in ...

A spacecraft traveling at one-tenth of the speed of light could shave the trip down to a quick 40 years. Future engineers could use nuclear power to achieve that, says Scott Bailey, an engineer at ...

Dr. King is an experimentalist interested in studying electric space propulsion systems, including Hall-effect thrusters, ion engines, and arcjets. By utilizing strong electromagnetic forces to ...