The X3 is one of three Mars engine prototypes currently in development. It is what's known as a Hall thruster, which uses electric and magnetic fields to ionize gases like xenon and expels the ...

At an overall efficiency of 51%, they achieved their maximum thrust of about 1.8 Newtons, on par with the much larger 100-kilowatt-class X3 Hall thruster. They will need to make the cooling system ...

At an overall efficiency of 51%, they achieved their maximum thrust of about 1.8 Newtons, on par with the much larger 100-kilowatt-class X3 Hall thruster. "This is kind of a crazy result because ...

The X3 thruster was designed by researchers at the University of Michigan in cooperation with NASA and the U.S. Air Force. It is a Hall thruster — a system that propels spacecraft by accelerating a ...

A thruster that's being developed for a future NASA mission to Mars broke several records during recent tests, suggesting that the technology is on track to take humans to the Red Planet within ...

A side shot of the X3 firing at 50 kilowatts. Ion thrusters are among the most exciting propulsion systems for future deep space exploration, and the technology's viability has already been ...

It's hoped that the technology could be used to ferry humans to Mars. The X3 is a type of Hall thruster, a design that uses a stream of ions to propel a spacecraft. Plasma is expelled to generate ...

The researchers were able to use this thruster to match the thrust of a much larger 100-kilowatt-class X3 Hall thruster, and believe their thrusters could allow future crewed Mars missions to reach ...

A Hall thruster is a high-efficiency propulsion device using plasma that is used for various difficult space missions, such ...

At an overall efficiency of 51%, they achieved their maximum thrust of about 1.8 Newtons, on par with the much larger 100-kilowatt-class X3 Hall thruster. "This is kind of a crazy result because ...