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A NASA ion engine while under test at the Glenn Research Center. It can propel spacecrafts to speeds of up to 320,000 km per hour (i.ibb.co)

submitted 4 months ago by Blaze@reddthat.com to c/interestingasfuck@lemm.ee

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEXT_(ion_thruster)

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[–] DarkThoughts@fedia.io 41 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Any sort of long continuous thruster can do that in deep space, assuming there's enough fuel / fuel to weight ratio. And ion engines are simply extremely fuel efficient, but also extremely weak in their actual output.

[–] DeanFogg@lemm.ee 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

So it's not likely it has the force for entry and exit