Satellite News

Electric rocket engines known as Hall thrusters, which use a high-velocity stream of ions to propel a spacecraft in space, have been used successfully onboard many missions for half a century. Erosion of the discharge channels walls, however, has limited their application to the inner solar system. A research team at Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has found a way to effectively control this erosion by shaping the engine’s magnetic field in a way that shields the walls from ion bombardment.