Good news. The Voronezh Association KBKhA (Design Bureau of Chemical Automatics) carried out successful firing tests of an ion electric rocket engine, developed jointly with the Moscow Aviation Institute.
The tests of this fundamentally new engine were successful. All parameters were as stated. Further, the so-called life tests are coming.
The engine, which is fully called the "high-frequency ion electric rocket engine", was tested on a special vacuum test bench that simulates the conditions of outer space.
The fact is that this unit is not designed to work in the atmosphere. This is not a booster engine, but a sustainer one. And by its design it is very different from the rocket engines we are used to.
The engine is powered by a jet stream of ionized gas accelerated in an electromagnetic field. This propulsion system has low thrust compared to liquid propellant rocket engines, but its advantage is a long service life. And this is already a serious application for flights outside the Earth's orbit.
Other uses of electric propulsion are also planned. They can be used to correct and stabilize the working orbit of satellites, as well as transfer from low to high orbits.
Since the engine is more economical in terms of such an indicator as fuel consumption, then some groups of satellites (everyone understood what it was about) can change orbits more than once for quite a long time. We have such satellites in the national economy for whom this option would be more than useful.
There is, however, a small minus. This is significantly more power consumption. The magnetic chamber demands its own. But, as the KBKhA assured, this aspect was properly resolved at the design stage.
So our competitors in space exploration are in for more than one pleasant (for us, of course) surprise.
I sincerely congratulate the KBKhA and MAI teams, which in such a short time (3 years) have embodied the idea of this engine in metal. And I hope that the rest of the tests will be just as successful.
Naturally, this installation will not be shown (if shown) very soon. It's clear. But, nevertheless, perhaps the stars will become a little closer to us. And it is doubly pleasant that this is our development and our execution.
