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Covering the well over 100 million miles to Mars is no easy feat. Even in the best case scenario, the journey can take many months.
As an alternative to heavy and inefficient chemical rockets, NASA continues to investigate an intriguing alternative that instead uses electricity for propulsion. Combined with a nuclear power source, such a thruster could greatly lower our dependence on heavy propellants, bringing human explorers one small step closer to visiting Mars for the first time.
Earlier this year, the space agency fired up a “next generation” prototype thruster in a special chamber at its Jet Propulsion Lab, cranking it up to “power levels exceeding any previous test in the United States,” according to a new update.
JPL Tests Next-Generation Electric Thruster
Newly-released video footage shows the thruster glowing a mesmerizing shade of red as a tungsten electrode in its center heats up to over 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
The prototype, a “lithium-fed magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD) thruster,” generates thrust by using high currents to electromagnetically accelerate lithium plasma, or hot, ionized particles of the alkali metal.
While other types of electric thrusters have already been used to propel spacecraft — like the one being used by NASA’s Psyche mission, which is currently headed to study a metal-rich asteroid — this particular type of propulsion has yet to be tested in space. That’s despite scientists investigating the concept since the 1960s.
NASA officials heralded the latest test as an important step in the right direction as it prepares to send the first humans to Mars within the next ten years or so.
“At NASA, we work on many things at once, and we haven’t lost sight of Mars,” said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman in a statement. “The successful performance of our thruster in this test demonstrates real progress toward sending an American astronaut to set foot on the Red Planet.”
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