The desire for increased agility in the space environment has prompted research into forms of propulsion that are capable of meeting the objectives of increasingly ambitious missions. While electric propulsion has mostly been used for station-keeping of satellites, its high efficiency has made it a viable and practical option for sending probes to far-off targets.

The Aerospace Corporation is continuing to expand researchers’ understanding of electric propulsion with its EP3 vacuum chamber, a new testing facility for spacecraft thrusters that greatly improves upon the capabilities of its contemporaries, offering testing options on an unrivaled scale.

Electric propulsion involves the application of electricity to ionize gas, which is accelerated out of a thruster to a very high velocity through a combination of electric and magnetic forces.

Unlike chemical propulsion, which provides a high amount of short-lived thrust at the expense of fuel efficiency, electric propulsion offers a low amount of long-lived thrust and high fuel efficiency, making it ideal for long-distance space exploration missions. To make these long journeys, researchers must be certain that spacecraft thrusters can perform consistently and reliably over the duration of a mission.