Guest: Jose Gonzalez del Amo     Host: Markus Voelter    Shownoter: Andy Joiner

Introduction 00:03:15

Electric propulsion | Jose Gonzalez Del Amo | Head of Electric Propulsion Section | ESA Propulsion Lab Manager (ESA - European Space Agency)  | Chemical propulsion | Aerothermodynamics | Numerical modelling | Chemical rocket propellant | Bipropellant | Oxidizer | Reductant | Thrust | Solar panels | Ion engine | Rocket equation | Specific impulse (exhaust velocity / g) | Chemical exhaust velocity typically 3000m/s | Ion engine exhaust velocity typically 30000m/s | Thrust = mass flow rate x exhaust velocity | Higher exhaust velocity requires less mass for same thrust (GTO - Geostationary transfer orbit | GEO - Geostationary orbit)  | Transfer 4000kg satellite from GTO to GEO requires approx. 2000kg chemical or 300kg electric propellant | Transfer takes approx. 2 weeks using chemical vs 3-6 months using electric propulsion | Launch 2 satellites for the price of 1 with electric propulsion | Electric propulsion still requires chemical propellant | Solar sails | Xenon | High atomic mass | Low valance energy | Easy to ionize | Easy storage

Electric vs chemical propulsion 00:10:34

Save propellant mass | Station keeping | Inter-planetary travel enabler | BepiColombo | Controllability | LISA | Gravity waves | Dark matter | Lagrange point | Solar pressure | Laser interferometry | Accelerometer | GOCE in low orbit (NGGM - Next Generation Gravity Mission)  | 200km separation | Low absolute thrust of electric propulsion | SABRE rocket engine | Flywheels (reaction wheels) | Station keeping | Magnetic moment | Euclid | Thrust ranges (1μN - ~2mN (LISA))  | Ion engine 1mN to 20mN (GOCE) (Station keeping 40mN - 80mN (Telecoms))  | Orbit transfer 5kW: 250mN | Dual purpose engines | Off-the-shelf products vs custom build

Engine types 00:27:36

Electrostatic | Ion Engine | 30000 m/sec exhaust velocity | 30 W/mN | FEEP | Electrothermal | Resistojet | Arcjet | Electromagnetic | Hall effect thruster | 20000 m/sec exhaust velocity (80mN - 250 mN thrust)  | 20 W/mN | Used for many years | Magnetoplasmadynamic thruster | OneWeb | 900 satellites | Low orbit for good latency | Hall effect/ion engine | Deorbit | Hall effect thruster | Ion thruster | Kaufman (ion thruster) | RIT (ion thruster) | Plasma | Helicon thruster | Monte Carlo simulation | Empirical modelling

In the lab 00:57:00

Vacuum chamber | Roots pump | Turbomolecular pump | Cryogenic panels | Adsorb | Data acquisition | Plasma diagnostics | Langmuir probe | Plasma potential | Double charged ion | Seismic block 280 tonnes | Measure thrust using a balance | Passive isolation | Capacitive displacement sensor | Laser interferometry | Active isolation | Valve testing | Water hammer | Investigate engine interference with satellite operation | SMART-1 | 375Kg satellite with Hall effect thruster | 18 months from GTO to moon using 85Kg propellant

ESA 01:09:05

Originally design & manufacture | Currently supporting industry testing & experiments | Satellite project support & verification | Liquid metal propellant for FEEP | Graphite ion impact zone | 4x better erosion coefficient compared with stainless steel | Water cooled to freeze ions | Change engine control parameters to optimize efficiency when eroding | Qualification tests can last 20000 hours (> 2 years) | Typical tests last 5 hours to 2 days | Plume characterization | Balances to measure center of mass | Development of diagnostics | Team of 10

Esoteric propulsion 01:23:17

Bending space-time | Miguel Alcubierre | Time to market | Nuclear-thermal propulsion | Nuclear-electric propulsion | Project Daedalus | VASIMR | Antimatter propulsion | Budgets | Nonmilitary work | Propellant storage | ECR | ESA Funding (GSP - General Studies Program | TRP - Technology Research Programme | GSTP - General Support Technology Programme)  | Advanced Concept Group | Ariadna