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www.southgatearc.org
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UK engineers building Ion space engineThe Times newspaper reports that engineers in the UK are building an Ion engine to power a spacecraft on a mission to Mercury. The engineers at QinetiQ have won a contract to build the engine for the European Space Agency’s mission to the nearest planet to the Sun. Parts of the engine — a Solar Electric Propulsion System (SEPS) - are lying on a table in a warehouse in Farnborough, Hampshire. If all goes according to plan, the same components will, before long, be orbiting the hot, cratered planet Mercury at least 48 million miles away. A smaller version of the ion engine is already in orbit 260km above Earth as part of the European Space Agency’s mission to measure the Earth’s gravitational field. Ion engines are ten times more efficient than conventional rocket engines. In an ion engine the noble gas xenon is pumped through a chamber where xenon atoms are stripped of an electron, becoming electrically charged ions, and drift towards two grids a millimetre apart. The grids are fed with two thousand volts - in space this power will come from paper-thin solar panels spanning 26m. As the ions pass through the electrified grids they accelerate to up to 50km a second and shoot from the rear in a parallel beam. On Earth, at sea level, the thrust would be just enough to lift a pound coin. In space, however, a little thrust goes a long way. Read the full Times Online story Mercury Mission PDF
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