Comments on: Most Advanced Ion Engines For 2013 BepiColombo Mission to Mercury

By: Sorting Out Science » Blog Archive » Carnival of Space, Week 38 — The Adventures of Shorty Barlow, Private Eye

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 13:46:37 +0000

[...] hadn't seen before, even up close. I've heard that now some Europeans even want in on the action. Not that it's any of my business, but the more the merrier, if you ask [...]

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 15:09:42 +0000

"with an efficiency equivalent to 17.8 million miles per gallon"

Rockets in space dont work that way. Voyager has an infinite MPG rating since it will never stop going (or almost never). Sometimes cool sounding things should not be included in science news because they are wrong.

ISP is the number you want to quote, and then you compare it to the Space Shuttle. That would bring it down to earth and give Johneveryreader a chuckle.

By: Manuel Herman

Manuel Herman — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 08:53:23 +0000

Thanks Ian, could be a good habit put all measures in I.S. units, or at least in both systems. ItÂ´s quite annoying to read an article with the unit conversor in another tab

Great article!

By: Ian O'Neill

Ian O'Neill — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 18:55:02 +0000

Hi Manuel Herman:
Using the wonders of google conversion, 17.8 million miles per gallon = 7.6 million kilometers per liter – have no clue if that's a UK gallon or US gallon though
Ian

By: Manuel Herman

Manuel Herman — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 12:54:18 +0000

Hi all! Please Ian, could you write down the equivalence of this measures in International Sistem measures?

Miles / gallon don't makes many sense to me, and for any non-anglo reader I suposse, what about kilometers / litre?

Thanks!

By: tmayes1999

tmayes1999 — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 11:35:28 +0000

i would guess the specific impulse of the ion engines will be 10,000- 15,000 seconds
tim

By: Graham

Graham — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 10:28:15 +0000

I'm a bit worried about "efficiency" figures in miles per gallon here on two counts:
I suspect this is for the propellant, whereas the energy for propulsion will come from some form of electrical generator.
And anyway, as a general feature, once the acceleration is over, spacecraft have the potential to carry on indefinitely without further use of fuel – an infinite number of miles per gallon.
Perhaps I should give them the benefit of the doubt and guess it was calculated for this specific mission.

By: Danzio

Danzio — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 09:06:10 +0000

I am with Robert O'Neal.
Where's the beef?
We must have more information!
Ion engines are cool.
The name itself is even cool sounding.
It sounds so super high tech and futurey.
Ok, so give us more, baby!

By: Robert O'Neal

Robert O'Neal — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 21:00:04 +0000

I'd like to read about how the new Ion engines are more advanced. On what dimension are Ion engines advancing? Thrust? Efficiency? Speed? Fuel? What elements of their design is evolving? The story about "most advanced Ion engins" didn't address that topic.

By: Ian O'Neill

Ian O'Neill — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 03:32:09 +0000

To Mario Di, Thanks for the spelling correction, my reference was incorrectly spelt too. All changed now. Cheers! Ian

By: scottie 5000

scottie 5000 — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 02:30:59 +0000

To Sh^ea dear Planetwatcher….To Sh^ea

By: Planetwatcher

Planetwatcher — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 20:35:07 +0000

Why not use solar sails for propulsion to keep from falling into the Sun? since the Sun is the source of solar propulsion.

By: Mario Di

Mario Di — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 18:39:52 +0000

The mission name is "BepiColombo" and not "BepiColumbo". The mission was named in honor of Giuseppe Colombo, Italian professor of Celestial Mechanics. Thanks to his ideas, Mariner 10 was able to do 3 Mercury flybys on 1974 and 1975, instead of the only one planned.

By: airamae guerrero

airamae guerrero — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 07:40:24 +0000

its good very nice it was interesting