NEXT Ion Propulsion : Getting About In Space
NASA Glenn recently announced that it has passed the 43,000 hour mark of continuous operation of its NEXT (NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster) ion thruster. Although coverage focused on the long running duration, the more relevent statistic is that NEXT represents a significant advancement over the first generation NSTAR ion thruster which powered Deep Space 1, and is currently accelerating the DAWN mission towards an […]
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