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Engineering
Aerospace Engineering
Can the thrust of Ion Thruster be increased at the cost of speed?
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[QUOTE="Astronuc, post: 6823831, member: 15685"] In order to levitate, one needs thrust or lift equal to the weight of the mass being levitated. In order to move, one needs an excess of thrust to overcome accelerate or overcome drag in the atmosphere. If one wants to get up out of the atmosphere, one needs as much thrust as possible to accelerate to speed (ultimately escape or orbital velocity) within the thermo-mechanical limits (e.g., tensile/shear/bending strength/resistance or stiffness) of the vehicle. Usually for electric or electromagnetic propulsion (e.g., ion or plasma), one is looking for very high specific impulse, in order to maximize thrust while minimizing mass flow rate (to minimize the propellant required for a mission), which leaves the velocity (or change in velocity/momentum) of the propellant flow as a key variable/factor. That higher the energy or power, the lower the mass flow rate for a given thrust. But there is only so much energy that can be transferred through physical system which is usually constrained by strength of materials, creep or melting point. One can build a bigger engine, but one has to build a bigger energy/power system and ostensibly a power conversion/transfer system. The bonus comes from combining energy generation into the propellant, e.g., a fusion reactor, in which the propellant products of fusion, but then one would have to find a way to separate products from useful (energy producing) reactants. That's a huge challenge. [/QUOTE]
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Can the thrust of Ion Thruster be increased at the cost of speed?
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