Technically Speaking

Yesterday, the world’s largest passenger plane, a double deck plane, successfully completed a 4 hour test flight. The Airbus A380 is visioned as the future of air travel with room for 840 people total. When it is in production the likely configuration setup for 3 classes will seat 555 passengers with options like bedrooms, gyms, bars, spacious lounges and even a basketball court. In addition to all of that, Airbus states the A380 will use 20% less fuel and will fly quieter, cheaper and more environmentally friendly than the 747.

The A380 is Airbus’s answer to the Boeing 747. Here are the stat comparing the planes and the future plans of Boeing in the super jumbo jet arena.

The Boeing 747 had dominated the jumbo-jet market for more than three decades, and the company has left open the possibility of trying to rev up dormant sales. Meanwhile, Airbus highlights these selling points for its plane, vs. the 747. The A380:

• Has at least 35% more seats. Depending on airlines’ specific orders, it can accommodate between 555 and 800 passengers.

• Flies 10% farther without refueling.

• Is more fuel efficient.

Instead of replacing the aging 747 with a new goliath-size plane, Boeing is championing the development of a 250-seat 7E7 Dreamliner. The high-tech, superlight plane can fly between almost any two airports in the world. The 7E7 is expected to be unveiled at the end of next year.

Steven Udvar-Hazy, CEO of International Lease Finance, the largest customer for both Boeing and Airbus, says there’s a need for both the 7E7 and the A380. “I don’t think the two compete as much as the press has made out of it. They serve two different segments of the market.” At the same time, Udvar-Hazy says, “Boeing miscalculated the 747 replacement market.”

Airbus has orders for almost 150 A380s. It expects to break even with another 100 orders.

None of the financially strapped U.S. airlines has placed an order. U.S. transport companies FedEx and UPS have ordered cargo versions of the A380.

Nevertheless, the plane should be much in evidence in a few years to passengers flying high-volume international routes such as London Heathrow to New York John F. Kennedy.

“The A380 is critical for us,” says Eryl Smith, director of planning and development at Heathrow. “It will change the face of Heathrow and the face of long-haul travel.”

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Currently, four prototypes will be used in a 2200 hours flight test programme lasting 15 months. Then upon certification the plane will hopefully go into production in the third quarter of 2006. Australian carrier Qantas became the first airline to commit to U.S. flights, announcing here that it will begin using the A380 between Melbourne and Los Angeles starting in October 2006.

NIAC (NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts), is looking into te possibility of a superconducting magnetic radiation shielding system to supplement (or replace) traditional passive shielding. Jeffery Hoffman, a former astronaut, is heading up the research funded by NASA.

The idea of using a magnetic field to shield a craft from radiation is not new; as Dr. Hoffman points out “the Earth has been doing it for billions of years!” Using magnetic shielding was proposed in the late 1960’s, but not pursued after plans for further space exporation were scrapped.

Two types of radiation need to be addressed, according to William S. Higgins, an engineering physicist who works on radiation safety at Fermilab, the particle accelerator near Chicago, IL:

* Solar flare protons (which would come in bursts following a solar flare)
* Galactic cosmic rays (a continuous background radiation)

The easiest way to protect against this radiation is to absorb it. However, such shielding can be massive, and cosmic rays can interact with the shielding and create secondary charged particles, worsening the situation. The primary benefit of using magnetic shielding is to save on the mass required for traditional absorption technologies. The mass of the spacecraft, which must be lifted off from the Earth and placed in orbit, directly drives the cost of space systems. Reducing the amount of mass would make space exploration more affordable and therefore more sustainable over the long term.

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The Earth naturally protects us through the same method so logically the idea should work. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS),is scheduled to be tested at the ISS, results will give insight as to what it will take to maintain a magnetic field of considerable strength and the near-absolute zero temperatures.

The project will be tackled in two phases.

Phase I research studies the shielding efficiency of the baseline design, and would begin conceptual systems design. Phase II would provide a detailed comparison of magnetic shielding with traditional passive absorption technologies, and detail how to integrate the magnetic shield into a spacecraft.

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After a days delay, NASA was able to conduct thier unmanned flight test of the X-43A scramjet. The was to prove that the engine could propel the aircraft to the speed of Mach 10, Mach 9.8 was acheived in this test. Theoritically the technology may be able to reach speeds of Mach 15.

NASA’s X-43A research vehicle screamed into the record books today, demonstrating an air-breathing engine can fly at nearly 10 times the speed of sound. Preliminary data from the scramjet-powered research vehicle show its revolutionary engine worked successfully at approximately Mach 10, nearly 7000 mph, as it flew at an altitude of approximately 110,000 feet.

The flight took place in restricted airspace over the Pacific Ocean northwest of Los Angeles. The flight was the last and fastest of three unpiloted tests in NASA’s Hyper-X Program. The program’s purpose was to explore an alternative to rocket power for space access vehicles.

“This flight is a key milestone and a major step toward the future possibilities for producing boosters for sending large and critical payloads into space in a reliable, safe, inexpensive manner,” said NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe. “These developments will also help us advance the Vision for Space Exploration, while helping to advance commercial aviation technology,” Administrator O’Keefe said.

Supersonic combustion ramjets (scramjets) promise more airplane-like operations for increased affordability, flexibility and safety in ultra high-speed flights within the atmosphere and for the first stage to Earth orbit. The scramjet advantage is once it accelerates to approximately Mach 4 by a conventional jet engine or booster rocket, it can fly at supersonic speeds, possibly as fast as Mach 15, without carrying heavy oxygen tanks, as rockets must.

The design of the engine, which has no moving parts, compresses the air passing through it, so it can ignite the fuel. Another advantage is scramjets can be throttled back and flown more like an airplane, unlike rockets, which tend to produce nearly or full thrust all the time.

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The European Space Agency has successfully navigated a ion propulsion vehicle into orbit around the moon. This is the first craft of such type to accomplish the feat.

The s-called SMART-1 spacecraft blasted off from Kourou, French Guiana, Sept. 27, 2003, on top of an Ariane 5 rocket, the Washington Post reported.

Since then its ion propulsion engine has been slowly moving the spacecraft by expelling positively charged atoms, or ions, of the gas xenon, accelerated by an electrical field inside the spacecraft’s engine.

The engine does not combust fuel; rather it splits atoms with electricity to get ions, accelerates them at high speed, and then ejects them, driving the spacecraft forward. SMART-1 generates its electricity by converting sunlight with outsize solar arrays that give the spacecraft a 45-foot wingspan.

Although ion propulsion does not generate much thrust, nothing slows it down in space so it constantly accelerates. Now that it has entered Moon orbit it will use the ion engine to slow down and study the lunar surface.

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NASA reports that they had to delay a planned flight of an unmanned hypersonic jet designed to reach a record speed of Mach 10, or 7,000 mph. The delay is due to a problem with the planes avionics and the flight is set to resume today.

Just 12 feet long and 5 feet wide, the X-43A jet is mounted on a modified Pegasus rocket designed to be carried aloft by a B-52 aircraft and released at 40,000 feet. The rocket will carry the X-43A to 110,000 feet and separate, allowing the craft to fly for about 10 seconds with its supersonic combustion jet operating.

The X-43A will then become a glider and perform maneuvers until it splashes into the ocean. The craft was designed to sink and will not be recovered.

The first X-43A flight failed in 2001 when the booster rocket veered off course and had to be destroyed. The second X-43A flew in March and reached Mach 6.83, or nearly 5,000 mph, a record for an aircraft powered by an air-breathing engine.

Scramjet technology may be used in developing hypersonic missiles and airplanes or reusable space launch vehicles, with a potential for offering speeds of at least Mach 15. Unlike rockets, scramjets would not have to carry heavy oxidizer necessary to allow fuel to burn because they can scoop oxygen out of the atmosphere.

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As you all already know, SpaceShipOne reached space on its qualifying flight for the X-Prize, Wednesday. During that flight, SPaceShipOne was observed in nearly 2 dozen rolls during its ascent. The rolls initially concerned the ground crew but then they were merely downplayed as no special issue. Burt Rutan explains…

The first roll of SpaceShipOne occurred at a high true speed, about Mach 2.7 (2.7 times the speed of sound), Rutan advised. The aerodynamic loads on the vessel were quite low and were decreasing rapidly, “so the ship never saw any significant structural stresses.”

“The reason that there were so many rolls was because shortly after they started, Mike was approaching the extremities of the atmosphere,” Rutan stated. Nearly all of the 29 rolls were done in continuous fashion without aerodynamic damping — as opposed to how an aerobatic airplane performs rolls at a much lower altitude and within a much thicker atmosphere.

“In other words, they were more like space flight than they were like airplane flight. Thus, Mike could not damp the motions with his aerodynamic flight controls,” Rutan said.

Rutan said that pilot Melvill elected to wait until he feathered the boom-tail in space — a large tail section of the craft used to slow down during reentry — before using the reaction control system thrusters (RCS) to take out the roll rate of the vehicle.

“When he finally started to damp the rates he did so successfully and promptly. The RCS damping, to a stable attitude without significant angular rates was complete well before the ship reached apogee (337,600 feet, or 103 kilometers),” Rutan stated.

“That gave Mike time to relax, note his peak altitude, and then pick up a digital high-resolution camera and take some great photos out the windows. Those photos are now being considered for publication by a major magazine,” Rutan added.

“While we did not plan the rolls, we did get valuable engineering data on how well our RCS system works in space to damp high angular rates,” Rutan said. “We also got a further evaluation of our ‘Care-free Reentry’ capability, under a challenging test condition.”

Videos of the flight clearly show that the SpaceShipOne righted itself quickly and accurately without pilot input as it fell straight into the atmosphere, Rutan said. No other winged, horizontal-landing spaceship — the X-15, the Russian Buran, nor the Space Shuttle — has this capability, he said.

The report that Melvill defied a ground request to shut down the motor and let it run a few more seconds in order to reach the 100 kilometer altitude is not true, Rutan advised.

“While a Mission Control aerodynamist did discuss a possible abort a few seconds earlier, Mike immediately shut down the motor on the first advisory call over the radio. Mike himself was monitoring the apogee predictor during the initial rolls and was in the process of going for the thrust termination switch as he heard the advisory call,” Rutan said.

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SpaceShipOne is planned to make its second flight Monday morning. According to the SpaceShipOne team, no adjustments or tweaks are necessary, the craft is ready to fly.

The moment we all have been waiting for, the SpaceShipOne team will make the first flight of two to meet the requirements of the X-Prize challenge. If all goes well, the event will be a single contributing factor to the revolutionizing of space travel. 1300GMT is the time to watch.

By focussing the efforts of private entrepreneurs, the X-Prize aims to break the monopoly of government organisations and jumpstart space tourism.

It appears the prize may have succeeded in this goal, with news on Monday that Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson would be offering commercial space flights in about three years using the technology employed by Rutan on SpaceShipOne.

The X-Prize will be give[sic] to the first team to send a three-person craft over 100km, and repeat the feat in the same ship within two weeks.

Rutan says he plans to make the two qualifying flights within four to seven days of each other. High winds are his major concern and could lead to delays.

A rival team, the Toronto-based GoldenPalace.com Space Program, which was formerly called the daVinci project, has put back its stab at the prize. The team had been scheduled for a first launch on 2 October.

Team leader Brian Feeney said the delay was necessary to allow more time to work with a pressure vessel for the Wild Fire spacecraft, as well a few other minor components.

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SpaceDev, the company that crafted SpaceShipOne’s hybrid rocket engine has been contracted by NASA to build a suborbital craft for them. The proposed craft is called Dream Chaser and it would take off vertically, and carry up to three people to an altitude of 160 km (100 miles). If everything goes well, the spacecraft would be built by 2008, and would demonstrate a set of launch and flight technologies.

Check out the complete story. (more…)

This fall we shall see to X Prize teams go for the $10 million prize. Yesterday, July 27, Burt Rutan, leader of Scaled Composites of Mojave, California, has formally announced that they will make the attempts at the prize September 29. On the same day, Brian Feeney, leader of the Canadian da Vinci Project, reported that they would unveil their craft, a balloon-lofted Wild Fire rocket, to the public August 5, and will make their attempts at the prize this fall. An actual date wasn’t given for the da Vinci Project’s prize attempts but I would speculate that it would have to be on the same day as Scaled Composites’ attempt or pretty damn near it.

The space race is actually turning out to be a race. We should expect to see some exciting things in the near future.

Source: Space.com

Scaled Composites choose Mike Melvill to be the pilot of SpaceShipOne for it first attempt at reaching space tomorrow. By the looks of his flight experience, they made a wise choice.

So far, spectators are already camped out to see SpaceShipOne make history. The White Knight, with SpaceShipOne attached to its underside, will lift off at 6:30 a.m. with hopes of reaching Space, 62 miles above the Earth. If the flight plan is accomplished, this will be the first time a non-governmentally funded project has flown a space craft to space.

If SpaceShipOne is successful, Rutan and his Scaled Composites development company will use the craft to make a run at the $10 million Ansari X Prize, a formal competition intended to spur commercial development of spaceflight.

White Knight, carrying the rocket plane slung under its belly, was to scheduled for a 6:30 a.m. PDT takeoff, followed by a climb to 50,000 feet, where it would release SpaceShipOne about 7:30 a.m.

SpaceShipOne’s pilot, flying solo, would then ignite the rocket and pull up into an 80-second powered climb. After the rocket motor shuts down, the craft is to coast up to a target altitude of 62 miles above the Earth, then re-enter the atmosphere and glide for 15 to 20 minutes to a landing back at Mojave.

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To date, an excess of $20 million have been invested in the SpaceShipOne project, quite a bit more than the prize for winning the X Prize challenge. The real money will come from the contracts to manufacture the winning ships design. In order to win the challenge the contestant must meet a few criteria.

To win the prize, a privately financed spacecraft capable of carrying three people must climb to 62 miles and land safely, then repeat the feat within two weeks.

The three-seat requirement demonstrates the capacity for paying customers, and the quick turnaround between flights demonstrates reusability and reliability.

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This flight will be considered just another test for the stated conditions will not be met. Currently, there is no planned course for the SpaceShipOne team if the test is a success. So if they are successful, then we should expect to see at least two more flights in the upcoming months.

Read more about the X Prize competition. (more…)

I know that many of you have been keeping up with the progress of SpaceShipOne so this post may be used as just a reminder that the race is nearly over.

The privately developed rocket plane is set to be released from its companion craft, known as White Knight, and then climb to 50,000 feet over the Mojave Desert before it fires its rocket motor for about 80 seconds. SpaceShipOne will reach Mach 3 speed in its vertical climb to the goal height of 62 miles (100 km).

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SpaceShipOne, which soared two-thirds of the way to the 100-km, out-of-atmosphere point designated as space for the Ansari X Prize competition three weeks ago, will mark the first manned trip to suborbital space without government support. The scheduled flight, to take place in California’s Mojave Desert, will be open to the public.

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Vulcan Ventures’ Allen, who has funded the SpaceShipOne project, called the scheduled space flight “one of the most exciting and challenging activities taking place in the fields of aviation and aerospace today.”

The privately developed rocket plane is set to be released from its companion craft, known as White Knight, and then climb to 50,000 feet over the Mojave Desert before it fires its rocket motor for about 80 seconds. SpaceShipOne will reach Mach 3 speed in its vertical climb to the goal height of 62 miles (100 km).

The pilot, who will become the first nongovernmental astronaut in history, then will fly the craft back to Earth after it reconfigures from rocket to glider plane. While SpaceShipOne is equipped with three seats for the X Prize requirement of three passengers or equivalent weight, the June 21st flight will be a solo trip.

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The race is somewhat close, as of now, but the SpaceShipOne team seems to have a bit of a lead over the rest of the field. It is predicted that with the success of the contestants, of reaching space travel, will come a new age of travel, “Space Tourism”. To this light, any team that creates a design, to the specs of the contest, can potentially be a winner in the long run as individuals start to venture into space.

It turns out that Iranian-born entrepreneurs Anousheh Ansari and Amir Ansari have donated a large sum of money to the X Prize program. The exact amount has been disclosed but it was sizeable enough to get the X Prize name changed to the “Ansari X Prize Competition”.

The X Prize, a $10-million prize for commercial suborbital RLVs, announced a major new donation and corresponding name change on Wednesday. The prize foundation said it had received a multimillion-dollar donation from Iranian-born entrepreneurs Anousheh Ansari and Amir Ansari. The exact size of the donation was not announced. To recognize the donation, the prize foundation said the prize would be renamed the Ansari X Prize Competition. The donation is the second major deal the prize has announced in as any months: in March the foundation inked a “seven-figure” sponsorship deal with the Champ Car World Series racing circuit. The Ansari X Prize offers the $10-million prize to the first commercially-developed suborbital RLV capable of carrying three people that flies to 100 kilometers altitude twice in a two-week period. The actual prize money is secured through an insurance policy that expires at the end of this year.

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There was no info whether the prize money will be increased due to the new donation.

News flash…

Three years after its first test flight ended in an explosion, NASA on Saturday successfully launched an experimental jet that the agency believes reached a record-setting speed of about 5,000 mph.

The unpiloted X-43A made an 11-second powered flight, then went through some twists and turns during a six-minute glide before plunging into the Pacific Ocean about 400 miles off the California coast.

“It was fun all the way to Mach 7,” said Joel Sitz, project manager at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center.

Flight engineer Lawrence Huebner said preliminary data indicated the needle-nosed jet reached a maximum speed of slightly over seven times the speed of sound, or about 5,000 mph, after a rocket boosted it to about 3,500 mph.

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The Hyper-X program continues on with the second test of their scramjet engine. The first test ended with the test craft being ordered destroyed. This time the craft, X-43A, has been redesigned to handle the structural stress that the excessive speeds will put on the craft. The predicted risks of this test has been reduced but the X-43A’s propulsion and aerodynamic design remain unproven.

During the test, the 49-foot-long booster rocket will propel the X-43A to about 3,700 mph before the experimental plane detaches from the rocket and flies under its own power using a hydrogen-powered “scramjet” engine, the first such test of the technology.

The actual powered-flight is expected to last about 10 seconds and reach Mach 7 before gliding for six minutes and plunging into the Pacific Ocean.

The test will gather crucial information for engineers and scientists trying to make the X-43A NASA’s platform for reusable spacecraft and hypersonic planes, or those traveling above Mach 5.

It will be the first time aircraft have detached in mid-flight for hypersonic flight.

“We’ve never separated two vehicles going Mach 5,” said Leslie Williams, spokeswoman for NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center which is overseeing the test. “That’s just never happened. It’s a very risky thing.”

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If the overall project is successful scramjets may be the new technology used in the construction of the replacement craft for our nation’s aging Space Shuttle. Scramjets will be looked at for commercial transportation but that won’t come for another 20 years after.

NASA will attempt another launch of their highly experimental hypersonic engine. The last attempt ended in disaster when the vehicle deviated from the planned flight course and it was deliberately destroyed.

The upcoming X-43 launch is planned to attain Mach 7 - seven times the speed of sound - by using a Pegasus booster rocket to accelerate the X-43, which then relies on its own supersonic combustion ramjet, or scramjet engine to combine fuel with ambient air for combustion at that speed. Central to the X-43 program is its scramjet engine, blended to the vehicle’s flattened airframe. The promise of scramjet propulsion technology is the ability to save weight and valuable onboard space by scooping oxygen from the atmosphere at high altitudes instead of carrying oxygen in tanks as conventional rocket motors must. The X-43 is considered hypersonic, using the term for flight at or above five times the speed of sound.

SpaceShipOne is the first piloted winged aircraft with outboard horizontal tails. Fully understanding the craft’s handling properties through the atmosphere is crucial.

During a glide to Earth after flying to the edge of space, the vehicle’s tail section flips up to a “feathered” position — moved to a 65-degree angle to the main body. This critical positioning of the hinged tail section slows the craft to allow a safe and sound glide down to the airstrip.

Source: Space.com

Honda is now playing with AI. They have made an helicopter that can maneuver completely on its own.

There isn’t much info on the aircraft yet, I’ll keep an eye out for it.

Source: Ananova

Concorde flights are to end after more than three decades of luxury travel.

British Airways and Air France made simultaneous announcements that they would be permanently grounding the famous supersonic airliners this year.

Passenger numbers have never recovered since the crash near Paris in 2000 and the aircraft no longer makes a profit.

In a statement, BA said Concorde would cease flying in the autumn because of “commercial reasons, with passenger revenue falling steadily against a backdrop of rising maintenance costs for the aircraft”.

It’s just not profitable to fly the Concorde any more, but with the end of this era comes the birth of a new one. I belive that supersonic flight will be even more popular and economical in the years to come. With the current advances in technology supersonic flight may be an everyday thing.

NASA has successfully built and flown a model plane powered by laser light. An invisible laser on the ground followed the flight of the plane, providing energy to its photovoltaic wings.

“The craft could keep flying as long as the energy source, in this case the laser beam, is uninterrupted,” said Robert Burdine, laser project manager for the tests, conducted at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

In earlier flights completed last year, engineers manually traced the path flown by the plane with a theatrical spotlight that provided the power needed to turn its propeller.

The remote-controlled planes don’t have to carry their own fuel or batteries, providing more room for scientific instruments or communications equipment.

Scientists envision flying the planes on long-duration flights to monitor the environment, including erupting volcanos. The planes also could be used for surveillance or to provide communications links.

Source: USA Today

The European Space Agency has launched a satellite, named SMART 1, toward the moon, Sunday, 28 September, 2003. This will be their first moon mission. This is also their first attempt at using ion drive propulsion for a spacecraft. The spacecraft is more like a toy because it is only a metre square in size and weighing just 367 kilograms.

One spectacular aspect about this satellites journey is that it will travel to the moon in a spiral trajectory reaching the moon sometime in 2005. That’s right, the trip will take over a year to reach the moon. The purpose of SMART 1 is to prove that the moon was created by the “Giant Impact Theory”. The Giant Impact Theory is that a Mars-sized object crashed into early Earth. The debris thrown into space aggregated into the Moon. The miniaturized equipment on SMART 1 will gather data about the moon that will determine the moon’s exact make-up.

It is a technology demonstrator and has been built in a short time and very cheaply.

The total bill has come to just 110 million euro (£76m), including launch fees.

This has been achieved partly by using new management methods but also by using novel techniques of miniaturisation and design.

At only a metre square in size and weighing just 367 kilograms, it could almost be a space toy.

But Smart is packed with kit that will change the nature of future high-budget missions from Europe.

For such a small craft, SMART 1 has some very sophisticated equipment.

D-CIXS

The Demonstration of a Compact Imaging X-ray Spectrometer (D-CIXS) is an innovative instrument designed for high throughput X-ray spectroscopy. It is being developed for the SMART-1 mission by an international team of scientists led by principal investigator Dr Manuel Grande of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the United Kingdom. Co-investigator is Juhani Huovelin from the University of Helsinki Observatory which will provide an X-ray Solar Monitor (XSM).

The collecting area of D-CIXS (pronounced ‘Dee-Kicks’ !) and its large aperture make it particularly suitable for lunar spectrometry. The Moon is a very weak source of fluorescence X-rays. D-CIXS will enable the instrument to obtain high quality spectra with a good spatial resolution even when the SMART-1 spacecraft is moving rapidly above the lunar surface.

[via ESA]

The ion drive is probably the most impressive thing about SMART 1. Below is a diagram of its workings and a brief outline on how it works. There is so much to read about this satellite so if you are interested, try starting your readings with the links provided below.
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