this post was submitted on 03 May 2026
100 points (98.1% liked)

Technology

84302 readers
4083 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws
100
NASA fired up a prototype of its electromagnetic thruster inside a vacuum chamber, reaching power levels of up to 120 kilowatts—the highest achieved in U.S. tests of an electric propulsion system (gizmodo.com)
submitted 15 hours ago by sanitation@lemmy.radio to c/technology@lemmy.world
9 comments fedilink hide all child comments
all 10 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] emmanuel_car@k.fe.derate.me 8 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

Interesting read, this part caught my eye:

Launching a crewed spacecraft to Mars might require 2 to 4 megawatts of power, meaning multiple MPD thrusters operating for more than 23,000 hours. This presents a challenge as the hardware operates at high temperatures, and the team needs to prove that the thruster’s components can withstand the heat for multiple hours during upcoming tests.

Would the thrusters really run the full 23k hours? That’s just shy of 960 days, surely once you reach a certain speed you wouldn’t need to run them continuously at full power.

[–] relativelyrobin@mander.xyz 5 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

Some ion trajectories involve constant low acceleration. It really adds up time. You accelerate halfway there, then decelerate the rest of the way.

The dawn spacecraft mission to ceres has 48,000+ hours of gentle acceleration under ion propulsion. That’s 5.5 years of firing. But it gets over 38,620 km/h of delta-v (acceleration).

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-dawn-spacecraft-fires-past-record-for-speed-change/

[–] emmanuel_car@k.fe.derate.me 3 points 1 hour ago

That’s to Ceres, Mars is only 9 months, so how do we get from 9 months to 23k hours?

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 hour ago

What was it again? 1 Watt is ~= lifting a 100g schoko 1 meter (ignoring inefficiencies in muscles). Did i get the unit right?

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 1 points 58 minutes ago* (last edited 52 minutes ago)

Launching a crewed spacecraft to Mars might require 2 to 4 megawatts of power, meaning multiple MPD thrusters operating for more than 23,000 hours.

Btw, what happened with the VASIMIR engine after the ISS tests in 2011ish? I think i've read that it could do the whole trip in 5 months (high-impulse insertion burns, high-speed & low-impulse travel). Somewhere on the shelves? Too high power draw?

[–] toiletobserver@lemmy.world 6 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

Did they decide if this type of thrust is actually possible and not just a poorly designed experiment?

Edit, nevermind, this isn't the microwave thing

[–] angband@lemmy.world 21 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

The em drive is what you're thinking of, this is something different. That thing dropped off the radar a long time ago.

[–] chocrates@piefed.world 4 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

There is a new one in the works, but forget what it is called.

I want it to exist so bad.

Edit:

Charles Buhler's work. Dunno if it has a name

[–] akwd169@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 hours ago

Buhler? Buhler?