Daily Archives: 11-November-2016

Ion Propulsion Math

NASA has a project known as Dawn that put a space probe in orbit around the asteroids Vesta and then Ceres. CSPAN presented an excellent Dawn mission briefing given by Marc Rayman, the Mission Director and Chief Engineer. One of the most interesting aspects of the Dawn spacecraft is its use of an ion thruster to maneuver it from one destination to another. This post presents some simple math that can be used to determine some of its key performance characteristics. Continue reading

Posted in Astronomy | 4 Comments