SPT-140 is a solar-powered

Hall-effect The Hall effect is the production of a voltage difference (the Hall voltage) across an electrical conductor that is transverse to an electric current in the conductor and to an applied magnetic field perpendicular to the current. It was discove ...

ion thruster An ion thruster, ion drive, or ion engine is a form of electric propulsion used for spacecraft propulsion. It creates thrust by accelerating ions using electricity. An ion thruster ionizes a neutral gas by extracting some electrons out o ...

, part of the SPT-family of thrusters. SPT stands for ''Stationary Plasma Thruster''. Like other members of the SPT series, it creates a stream of electrically charged

xenon Xenon is a chemical element with the symbol Xe and atomic number 54. It is a dense, colorless, odorless noble gas found in Earth's atmosphere in trace amounts. Although generally unreactive, it can undergo a few chemical reactions such as the ...

ions accelerated by an electric field and confined by a magnetic field. The thruster is manufactured by the Russian

OKB Fakel EDB Fakel ( Russian ''ОКБ "Факел"'') is a Russian electric propulsion system development company. It is located in Kaliningrad in Kaliningrad Oblast. It was founded in 1955 as a ''Propulsion laboratory'' of the Soviet Academy of Sciences ...

, who collaborated during development with NASA's

Glenn Research Center NASA John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field is a NASA center within the cities of Brook Park and Cleveland between Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and the Rocky River Reservation of Cleveland Metroparks, with a subsidiary facil ...

Space Systems Loral SSL, formerly Space Systems/Loral, LLC (SS/L), of Palo Alto, California, is a wholly owned manufacturing subsidiary of Maxar Technologies. SSL designs and builds satellites and space systems for a wide variety of government and commercial cus ...

, and

Pratt & Whitney Pratt & Whitney is an American aerospace manufacturer with global service operations. It is a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies. Pratt & Whitney's aircraft engines are widely used in both civil aviation (especially airlines) and military avi ...

beginning in the late 1980s. It was first tested at the

Plasmadynamics and Electric Propulsion Laboratory Plasmadynamics and Electric Propulsion Laboratory (PEPL) is a University of Michigan laboratory facility for electric propulsion and plasma application research. The primary goals of PEPL is to increase efficiency of electric propulsion systems, ...

in 1997. In 2002, it was tested as a 3.5 kW unit by the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army S ...

as part of its Integrated High Payoff Rocket Propulsion Technology program. In 2023, the thruster was launched aboard

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...

's Psyche spacecraft.

Specifications

References

Ion engines Spacecraft propulsion {{improve categories, date=October 2023 Spacecraft components

Specifications

See also

References