I was wondering... An question just occured to me that I couldn't answer: If a small satellite were hand-launched from the space station, and it contained an ion-drive motor powered by electricity, would it ever be able to accelerate in order to gain a higher orbit, or would that require an impracically large power supply/engine? In other words, could that method be used to achieve higher orbits with communication/ham class satellites without having to use the typical large rocket we've been using all this time? Also, would there be a cost-advantage to this method?
Auke de Jong VE6PWN DO33go Edmonton, AB
Existing ion thrusters require many kW power to generate a few hundred mN thrust, so it would need very large solar panels :-(
73 Alex OZ9AEC
Quoting "Auke de Jong, VE6PWN" sparkycivic@shaw.ca:
I was wondering... An question just occured to me that I couldn't answer: If a small satellite were hand-launched from the space station, and it contained an ion-drive motor powered by electricity, would it ever be able to accelerate in order to gain a higher orbit, or would that require an impracically large power supply/engine? In other words, could that method be used to achieve higher orbits with communication/ham class satellites without having to use the typical large rocket we've been using all this time? Also, would there be a cost-advantage to this method?
Auke de Jong VE6PWN DO33go Edmonton, AB
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Alexandru Csete -
Auke de Jong, VE6PWN