A Remarkable New Thruster Could Achieve Escape Velocity—and Interplanetary Travel

The history of space travel is filled with impressive sizzle reels of fire-breathing chemical engines launching monumental rockets skyward toward the Moon, Mars, and beyond. While these massive devices are marvels of human engineering, the real workhorses of the space industry are the immensely less-gargantuan ion thrusters.

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In the future, spacecraft will need to perform high-velocity propulsive maneuvers—such as achieving escape velocity and orbital capture—that current ion engines can’t deliver. That’s why NASA developed the H71M sub-kilowatt Hall-effect thruster, a next-generation ion engine that can supply a velocity change.
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While commercial ion thrusters are good enough for most LEO satellites, these engines only use “10% or less of a small spacecraft’s initial mass in propellant,” according to NASA. The H71M thruster uses 30 percent, and could operate for 15,000 hours.
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One of the first spacecraft companies that will use this next-gen technology is SpaceLogistics, a space subsidiary of Northrop Grumman. The company’s NGHT-1X Hall-effect thrusters are based on NASA’s technology, and will allow its Mission Extension Pod (MEP)—which, as its name suggests, is essentially a satellite repair vehicle—to reach geosynchronous Earth orbit, where it’ll attach itself to a larger satellite. Acting as a “propulsion jet pack,” the MEP will act as an ion-powered symbiote that extends the larger satellite’s mission by at least six years.