NASA and Aerojet Rocketdyne are taking a giant step in testing a brand new ion propulsion engine that can assist energy lunar exploration.
The Superior Electrical Propulsion System (AEPS) has been present process qualification testing at NASA’s Glenn Analysis Middle in Cleveland, in keeping with a assertion from the company.
AEPS is a Corridor impact thruster, which accelerates ions to generate thrust. The AEPS makes use of electrical energy generated by photo voltaic arrays to create a gentle stream of ionized xenon gasoline, producing low however extremely environment friendly thrust.
Associated: NASA’s Gateway moon-orbiting area station defined in footage
The 12-kilowatt Corridor thruster is essentially the most highly effective electrical propulsion thruster in manufacturing, in keeping with NASA, being over two instances extra highly effective than the present state-of-the-art in-space electrical propulsion. The company says the brand new thruster will probably be essential to future science and exploration missions at the moon and past.
“AEPS is actually a next-generation know-how,” Clayton Kachele, the AEPS mission supervisor at NASA’s Glenn Analysis Middle in Cleveland, mentioned in a assertion in July, throughout an earlier testing run.
“Present electrical propulsion methods use round 4 and a half kilowatts of energy, whereas right here we’re considerably rising energy in a single thruster,” Kachele added. “That functionality opens a world of alternative for future area exploration, and AEPS will get us there farther and quicker.”
The thrusters will probably be used on the Energy and Propulsion Aspect (PPE) of Gateway; NASA’s deliberate lunar area station that can help Artemis missions and extra. Xenon gasoline for the engines will probably be among the many provides wanted to be replenished by cargo missions to the Gateway to maintain the small lunar station working easily. A devoted Xenon Switch System (XTS) is being developed by OHB in Bremen, Germany for this function.
NASA will check a second thruster qualification article in 2024. That check will simulate situations that AEPS will doubtless expertise throughout Gateway’s preliminary orbit elevating and transition to lunar orbit. NASA plans to function the thrusters for 23,000 hours in whole throughout an almost four-year check marketing campaign inside NASA Glenn’s vacuum chambers.
PPE is presently scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in November 2025.
