Dusk for Dawn: NASA Mission to the Asteroid Belt

[Innocynic]

I found the brief video at the link below to be interesting and downright uplifting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hth3nKGKTFc

[andrew_o]

Nice!

It's great to see people doing constructive and imaginative things.

[doubletroublejim]

Too bad it couldn't stay in orbit and continue transmitting. Solar or nuclear power? Wonder why that wasn't incorporated.

[ModestProposals]

(09-09-2018, 04:42 PM)doubletroublejim Wrote: Too bad it couldn't stay in orbit and continue transmitting.   Solar or nuclear power? Wonder why that wasn't incorporated.

It ran out of the liquid chemical propellant which kept it in orbit.

[doubletroublejim]

Does anyone know what IM propulsion is?

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(09-09-2018, 05:08 PM)ModestProposals Wrote:

(09-09-2018, 04:42 PM)doubletroublejim Wrote: Too bad it couldn't stay in orbit and continue transmitting.   Solar or nuclear power? Wonder why that wasn't incorporated.

It ran out of the liquid chemical propellant which kept it in orbit.

I thought it was still in orbit, but not transmitting.

[andrew_o]

Ion drives use a tiny amount of a gas , charge it and then spit it out the back at very high velocity, thereby creating a thrust. The trouble is that the thrust created is tiny and eventually the store of gas is exhausted.

[brunt]

(09-10-2018, 05:40 AM)andrew_o Wrote: Ion drives use a tiny amount of a gas , charge it and then spit it out the back at very high velocity, thereby creating a thrust. The trouble is that the thrust created is tiny and eventually the store of gas is exhausted.

Yes, the basic idea is rather than an explosive reaction as is typically used, it is just a charged gas repelled by an electrical charge.