Earth To Orbit and In Space Propulsion SystemsION Drive.ppt

Earth To Orbit and In Space Propulsion Systems:ION Drive Technology Jason Jayanty and Randy Parrilla Mentors: Dr. Siva Thangam and Professor Joseph Miles Ion Drive Technology Ion Propulsion works by giving a positive charge to atoms inside the chamber using the shuttle’s solar panels, magnetically pulling them towards the rear of the ship, and then thrusting them out through repulsion. On the way out, electrons are also emitted from the shuttle so to re-neutralize those positively charge atoms and not cause damage to the surroundings. Advancing ION Drive The Ionizing Chamber in an ION Drive system is composed of a radiation system. This system shoots out radiation (usually in the form of X-Rays and other invisible light) at the gas particles which in turn ionizes them into a positively charged atom and an electron. If we can make the radiation system smaller by having an even smaller energy creation source , that way we can provide for a more powerful x-ray while using the same or smaller amount of energy. Advancing ION Drive (Cont) Another way to increase the strength of our ION Drive, we would need to increase the speed at which the X-Rays hit the particle (more speed means more kinetic energy – KE = ?MV2). The Law of Conservation of Energy tells us that most of that energy will be transferred to the particles. Today’s particle accelerators are very large and use an immense amount of energy. We plan on using an X-Ray turbine like system for accelerating these particles because the LINAC is insanely large and would not fit in our shuttle. Lithium Reactions for ION Drive Electric Propulsion Plasma Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University is involved in the fields of Electric and Advanced propulsion systems, plasma dynamics, astronautics, and space plasma physics Uses system similar to Ion Drive called Lorentz Force Accelerator Chemical reaction between Lithium and Hydrogen to create thrust (Lithium Hydroxide/Hydrogen/heat) We can use this as Hydro-Carbo