Electric rocket engine

Another attractive idea is to use electric power for propulsion. Having many design variations, the electric rocket engines (ERE) could roughly be divided into three groups ... 

The first experiments with the thermal electric engine were conducted in Russia in 1929 by its inventor, Valentin P. Glushko, who later became a world-famous authority in rocket propulsion. For more than forty years, the United States and Russia have devoted many resources to research and development of various kinds of EREs. First tested in space by the Russians in 1964, these engines have found some limited applications in modern space technology. For more than two decades Russian weather and communication satellites have regularly used electric rocket engines for orbital stabilization. The first spacecraft to employ ERE for main propulsion was the American asteroid exploration probe Deep Space 1, launched in 1998. The performance of... 

Figure 11-37. General components of an electric rocket engine.

Optimal Specific Impulse of an Electric Rocket Engine... 

The mass of an electric rocket engine, increases linearly with the total consumed power of the engine, Peiectnc, where the coefficient of proportionality Keiectric can be estimated today as 0.03 kgAV ... 

Thns, optimal valnes of the specific impulse do not depend on thrust and are mostly determined by operation time of the electric rocket engine, or simply on the flight time of the spacecraft. For example, the flight to Mars (when t 1 year) requires in optimum 7sp 40 km/s. The parameters of electric rocket engines are expected to be improved in the... 

Aminoplasts of the MFE type are characterized by high mechanical strength and dimensional stability and find application in electrical equipment units (blocks, plates, etc.), in components endowed with electrical strength, thermal and arc resistance. They have proved to be an excellent material for making electric devices in rocket engineering and can be incorporated into equipment operating under tropical conditions. 

Moreover, there is a current need of miniaturized propulsion system for widening the capabilities of low cost micro-satellites. Recently, the development of a turbo-pump fed miniature rocket engine has been proposed as a new propulsion system for micro-satellites (10 to 100 kg) [6] the bipropellant tlmister uses 70 wt.-% H2O2 as oxidizer and ethanol as fuel. The engine displays four sub-components (i) two propellant micro-pumps, (ii) a HP decomposition chamber, (iii) a turbine coupled to an electric power generator and driven by the hot gas released from HP decomposition, and (iv) a thruster for the combustion reaction. 

Finally, 35 small nuclear reactors have been employed by the former USSR and 1 by USA as high power energy sources in satellites. Two naval-type reactors on barges are also being built in Russia to be used for heat and electricity supply in remote locations in the arctic. Reactors have also been developed in the US for use as aircraft and rocket engines. 

Grishin, S.D., Leskov, L.V, Kozlov, N.P. (1975), Electric-Propulsion Rocket Engines, Machinery (Mashinostroe-nie), Moscow. 

NASA) scientist Harold R. Kaufman built and successfully tested an ion engine that used mercury as reaction mass in the suborbital flight of the Space Electric Rocket Test 1 (SERT 1). 

The 1940s to the present date has seen the invention of the jet engine, robots and robotics, the development of nuclear power and construction of power reactors, the merging of electrical and mechanical concepts in the creation of control systems, and the development of the rocket engine, which allowed humans to venture beyond the boundaries of their home planet for the first time. 

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