Fri, Oct 03, 2003
That's Good News, Since It's in Orbit Right Now
The European Space
Agency wanted us to know that there's been progress since liftoff
last weekend. SMART-1's revolutionary propulsion system was
successfully fired at 12:25 UT on 30 September, 2003, while in
orbit around the Earth.
Engineers at ESOC, the European Space Agency's control centre in
Darmstadt, Germany, sent a command to begin the firing test, which
lasted for one hour. This was similar to a trial performed on Earth
before SMART-1 was launched.
Several months ago, the ion engine, or Solar Electric Primary
Propulsion (SEPP) system, had been placed in a vacuum chamber on
the ground and its functions and operation were measured. Now in
space and in a true vacuum, the ion engine actually worked better
than in the test than on the ground, and has nudged SMART-1 a
little closer to the Moon.
This is the first time that Europe has put an electric primary
propulsion system in space; and it's also the first European use of
this particular type of ion engine, called a 'Hall-effect'
thruster.
The SEPP consists of a single ion engine fuelled by xenon gas
and powered by solar energy. The ion engine will accelerate SMART-1
very gradually to cause the spacecraft to travel in a series of
spiralling orbits -- each revolution slightly further away from the
Earth -- towards the Moon. Once captured by the Moon's gravity,
SMART-1 will move into ever-closer orbits of the Moon. The little
SMART-1 will cover well over sixty million miles to get to the
moon, even though the distance as the crow flies [bad choice of
words, that!] is just about a quarter-million miles; but it will be
done with less fuel than anyone could have imagined a generation
ago.
As part of one of the overall mission objectives to test this
new SEPP technology, the data will now be analyzed to see how much
acceleration was achieved and how smoothly the spacecraft
travelled. If the ion engine is performing to expectations, ESA
engineers will regularly power up the SEPP to send SMART-1 on its
way.
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