Dec 23 2003
From The Space Library
NASA announced that a team of JPL engineers had successfully tested a new ion-propulsion engine design, marking the first performance test of the Nuclear Electric Xenon Ion System (NEXIS) engine at the high-efficiency, high-power, and high-thrust operating conditions needed for use in large-scale, nuclear-electric-propulsion applications. The NEXIS engine was one of several candidate propulsion technologies under review by NASA's Project Prometheus, an initiative to make strategic investments in nuclear-fission power and electric-propulsion technologies for use in space travel. NASA intended for Project Prometheus to enable development and implementation of a new class of missions to the outer solar system. Lead Investigator for the JPL test, James E. Polk, remarked that the NEXIS thruster had demonstrated one of the highest efficiencies of any xenon-ion thruster ever tested, and that the research team expected the NEXIS design to meet the requirements for the proposed Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter Mission. (NASA, “Ion Engine Design Passes Key NASA Test,” news release 03-421, 23 December 2003, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2003/dec/HQ_03421_passes_test.html (accessed 23 March 2003).
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