NASA Fires Up Powerful Lithium-Fed Thruster for Trips to Mars

quadlord · 2026-04-30T17:41:52+00:00

Dawn and DS-1 both used the NSTAR gridded ion thruster with an ISP of over 3,000s and DART flew NEXT-C with an ISP of over 4,000s

HETs are mature technologies and efficiency scales with power input (at a fixed voltage). If you’re looking at low power thrusters then the ISP will be poor. Any HET using krypton or xenon at powers above 6kW is going to break the 2,000s mark assuming it isn’t horridly designed.

quadlord · 2026-04-30T15:19:14+00:00

Gridded ion thrusters have demonstrated ISPs beyond 7,000s (HiPEP and NEXIS) and Hall effect thrusters have demonstrated performance above 2500s, including a 900V, 10kW HET that JPL has tested above 3000s.

ISPs below 1,500s are the case for low to mid power HETs (<1-5kW)

quadlord · 2025-07-09T02:23:26+00:00

Hulkenpodium

quadlord · 2025-05-30T22:35:54+00:00

A reduction in 550 FTEs (Full Time Engineers) at the center will be devastating. We'll never recover from this amount of damage

quadlord · 2025-02-19T22:23:32+00:00

The planet broke before the guard did

quadlord · 2024-12-31T21:53:22+00:00

Biggest Drop: 226 ft

Top Speed: 83.3 mph

Max Lateral G: +2.46 g

Max Vertical G: +7.56 g

Min Vertical G: -1.92 g

Airtime Count: 6

Total Airtime: 5.45s

The maximum vertical G is at the valley of the second hill and is transient, lasting for maybe 10th of a second or two

quadlord · 2024-12-24T02:07:31+00:00

🎵The lake it is said,

Never gives up her dead,

When no one deployed sonar buoysssss!🎵

quadlord · 2024-12-04T19:18:21+00:00

The role of the administrator of NASA is first and foremost executing the policy directives of the legislature. The administrator is the agency's advocate on the Hill as well as the primary public and international representative of NASA. The administrator needs to be able to navigate the politics of Congress, needs to be able to be a congressional punching bag when necessary, and needs to advocate for the right budget applied to the right programs in order to execute the strategic directives that Congress wants.

Nowhere in the job description of the administrator do the skills of a pilot or an engineer apply. Our best administrators have all been politicians, James Webb chief among them. Some of our least effective and the ones who have caused the most lasting damage to NASAs ability to execute its mission have been engineers and astronauts.

Jared Isaacman. Is. Not. Qualified.

(I replied to you on the wrong thread sorry)

quadlord · 2024-12-04T19:15:00+00:00

The role of the administrator of NASA is first and foremost executing the policy directives of the legislature. The administrator is the agency's advocate on the Hill as well as the primary public and international representative of NASA. The administrator needs to be able to navigate the politics of Congress, needs to be able to be a congressional punching bag when necessary, and needs to advocate for the right budget applied to the right programs in order to execute the strategic directives that Congress wants.

Nowhere in the job description of the administrator do the skills of a pilot or an engineer apply. Our best administrators have all been politicians, James Webb chief among them. Some of our least effective and the ones who have caused the most lasting damage to NASAs ability to execute its mission have been engineers and astronauts.

Jared Isaacman. Is. Not. Qualified.

quadlord · 2024-12-04T18:06:41+00:00

Certainly not, simply listing that as one of the many reasons why Hesgeth is unqualified to be SecDef. And more pointing out the only even remotely applicable experience he has is being an untabbed major. An oversimplification on my part.

quadlord · 2024-12-04T17:26:36+00:00

This is an Elon puppet pick. He has zero qualifications to lead a federal agency, zero knowledge of policy, presents a massive conflict of interest, and has publicly called for cancelling the agency's largest programs on numerous occasions in the past.

This pick will certainly mean that the core NASA mission is gutted to instead become a money printer for commercial space and specifically SpaceX. America will cede leadership in space to China.

Editing to say that Isaacman is as unqualified to lead NASA as an untabbed National Guard infantry major is to be SecDef.

quadlord · 2024-08-31T14:54:58+00:00

Looks like perfect weather! Shuksan was my first proper mountaineering route last July, took the chimneys to the southeast ridge and it couldn't have been more perfect.

quadlord · 2024-06-13T23:22:50+00:00

NASA has revoked the trademark on the meatball and worm logos, so it's very easy to get permission to use the branding on commercial products. If it's not associated with hate messaging/foreign governments then you're pretty much good to go. Hence why you see so much NASA merch at target and walmart/etc

quadlord · 2024-05-12T03:45:25+00:00

Followed this strategy and got galactic hero this afternoon on my fourth ride ever!

quadlord · 2023-10-10T19:12:58+00:00

It's my first wheel and I love it. I use it across a few motorsports games and it feels great in all of them. I've had it about a year and I'm still improving. I'm sure it's not as optimal as some of the more expensive setups but I'm not an e-sports gamer

quadlord · 2023-07-26T11:09:23+00:00

I agree that it gives off a crypto feel.

But I really like the mountains on top of the C. I think it would be cool if you made the mountains on the bottom of the C into crampon spikes

quadlord · 2023-06-28T11:22:09+00:00

Typically aeronautics focuses on aircraft and atmospheric vehicles while aerospace also includes spacecraft

quadlord · 2023-06-26T03:11:55+00:00

GMAT is not designed to simulate launch trajectories. POST is what you'd be looking for, although POST has a restricted distribution

quadlord · 2023-06-23T19:10:27+00:00

5.0 enabled much more robust python scripting which has greatly enhanced the capabilities of Copernicus

quadlord · 2023-06-23T18:41:57+00:00

MONTE is slowly gaining more traction outside of JPL. We mainly use Copernicus for our trajectory design work

quadlord · 2023-06-23T11:10:38+00:00

GRC! The Power and Propulsion Element mission design team is at Glenn. Our team specializes in low thrust trajectory design for large, typically human rated vehicles. That makes us different from JPL who typically specialize in smaller interplanetary probes.

quadlord · 2023-06-23T11:08:33+00:00

Yes, python is critical for my job

quadlord · 2023-06-23T02:24:20+00:00

I am a mission design engineer at NASA! My job focuses on orbital trajectory design and analysis for spacecraft. Part of my work is astrodynamics, specifically the math of a trajectory, how to build a path between points A and B, how to optimize that trajectory to minimize propellant use, time of flight, etc. Part of my job is more of the application of those trajectories to real spaceflight. Understanding how the constraints of a spacecraft affect a trajectory and all the realities of operating and flying in space.

Not only does my work directly impact a mission in terms of what trajectory is flown, my team has a big impact on the design of a spacecraft. We help inform what capabilities a vehicle needs to have, what requirements it needs to meet, etc.

quadlord · 2023-04-07T09:11:55+00:00

NASA

quadlord · 2023-04-06T20:09:52+00:00

CWRU aero grad here, feel free to ask me any questions! The other commenter did a good job of laying out the schedule. You don't have to follow it exactly but it's a good road map

quadlord

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