Lead
The advent of ion thrusters directly dwarfs the rocket thrusters designed by fossil fuel and chemical fuel engineers.
The mainland also recently announced that China's space station will no longer use rocket engines, but will be powered by ion thrusters.
How good is the ion thruster of the Chinese space station?
It is reported that it is a linear argon ion thruster developed by Harbin Institute of Technology, and the total installed thrust is more than twice the total installed thrust of the US space station thruster.
Chemical fuels vs. ion thrusters.
On October 4, 1957, mankind's first artificial satellite "Sputnik 1" was launched, and mankind entered the space age.
The mainland began to explore the space dream, and gradually pushed the mainland's space industry to a new height in the world.
And rocket engines in the field of aerospace are also developing.
In the study of rocket engines, there are two main families: "chemical-fueled rockets" and "ionization rockets" (i.e., ion thrusters).
The ionization rocket was developed in the United States in 1946 by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Its basic principle is to put noble gases, gases or metals and other substances into a closed container, bombard these substances with electrons, so that some of the electrons in the atoms are bombarded out, so that the matter produces space ionization and forms an ion cloud.
As these ion clouds become electrified, they can be controlled by the external charge to gain the direction of propulsion and generate propulsion.
Compared to chemical rocket fuel, ionization rockets have a greater velocity.
In 1950, the United States used the technology of ionization rockets to achieve the first artificial satellite launch in human history.
In only 12 years, the Americans successfully sent humans to the surface of the moon and completed the first human walk on the moon.
However, in the research of rocket engines on the mainland, the technological progress of the mainland is far inferior to that of others.
It was not until 1970 that the mainland developed the mainland's first-generation rocket engine, and the great strides to promote the development of aerospace were once again caught up by the mainland.
But because the chemical fuels used in rocket launches are the largest rockets designed by engineers, there is a limit to the speeds we can achieve.
Therefore, the way to reach the destination faster is to use ion thrusters.
In the 50s of the 20th century, Continental officially began to study ion thrusters, but it was not until 1966 that a linear ion thruster with good performance was officially developed.
As a result, the mainland's aerospace dream has not only made great achievements in the field of space, but also made good progress in the field of rocket engines.
The use of ion thrusters for China's space station is the biggest progress in continental ion thruster research.
What are the advantages of ion thrusters?
The advantages of ion thrusters are mainly the following:
First of all, ion thrusters have a high speed.
Ion thrusters are capable of increasing the speed of atoms or molecules to very high speeds.
For example, an ion thruster developed by the United States can increase the speed of xenon ions to 50 km/s.
Of course, the higher the speed, the less time it will take to get into orbit.
Therefore, ion thrusters are widely used on space probes.
No, the American "Frey" is entering the orbit of "Halley's Comet" for observations.
For continental probes, ion thrusters can help transport probes to outer space.
The ion thrusters used in China's space station have a high speed and cost savings compared to the chemical rocket engines previously used by the mainland.
Unlike rocket launchers, which require only a fraction of inert gas or metal, the maximum cost of a rocket launch is the cost of fuel, while ion thrusters are required to launch the probe to its destination.
While the probe is in Earth orbit, the ion thruster can add velocity to the probe, allowing it to gain a higher velocity and thus enter a higher orbit.
But ion thrusters have a big drawback, that is, propulsion.
The propulsion power of the ion thruster is quite different from that of the chemical rocket engine, and the greater the propulsion, the farther the ion thruster can travel.
For example, the most advanced ion thruster in the United States at this stage has a propulsion power of only about 0.25 Newtons, while the propulsion of the Continental's chemical rocket engine is 200 kilonewtons.
Therefore, the continent's ion thrusters must be upgraded to be able to reach the launch of the continental probe.
The total thrust of the ion thruster to be used in the Chinese space station is three times that of the continental ion thruster, and it already has the highest total thrust of the same type of ion thruster in the world.
The argon ion thruster used in the Chinese space station will have a maximum thrust of 700 kN, and its total installed thrust will exceed twice the total installed thrust of the US space station thruster, which has very good performance.
Secondly, ion thrusters can also greatly improve the operating time of space probes.
When the probe is exploring space, the energy saving of the ion thruster also allows the probe to observe the target for a longer time.
For example, the ion thruster used in the "Mars Express A" in the United States can save a lot of fuel compared to liquid hydrogen due to the energy-saving liquid xenon as a propellant.
As a result, the U.S. Mars Express A will be able to operate on Mars for nearly five years.
The linear argon ion thrusters used in China's space station, which will use atoms as propellants, can also operate on the mainland's space station for a long time.
Ion thrusters also have the advantages of cost savings, low carbon and environmental protection, and can also carry waste from chemical rockets to further places.
This is also one of the very big advantages of the continent's ion thrusters.
epilogue
Ion thrusters can bring greater advantages to the mainland's space station, greatly improve the mainland's aerospace development speed, and bring new breakthroughs to the project.
Continental will work on ion thrusters to continuously improve their propulsion so that they can transmit more information at greater distances.
In the future, the continent's ion thrusters will be able to go to the world on the continent's probes and complete the deeper exploration of human beings into outer space.