As small as a penny, these thrusters run on jets of ion
beams.
A penny-sized rocket thruster may soon power the smallest
satellites in space.
The device, designed by Paulo Lozano, an associate professor
of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, bears little resemblance to today’s
bulky satellite engines, which are laden with valves, pipes and heavy
propellant tanks. Instead, Lozano’s design is a flat, compact square — much
like a computer chip — covered with 500 microscopic tips that, when stimulated
with voltage, emit tiny beams of ions. Together, the array of spiky tips
creates a small puff of charged particles that can help propel a shoebox-sized
satellite forward.