spacetoday.net: SMART-1 fires ion engine

Posted: Thu, Oct 2, 2003, 2:01 PM ET (1801 GMT)
SMART-1 illustration (ESA)

ESA's SMART-1 spacecraft started its ion engine for the first time on Tuesday as it begins an 18-month journey to the Moon. The Solar Electric Primary Propulsion (SEPP) engine on SMART-1 started at 8:25 am EDT (1225 GMT) Tuesday and ran for one hour as a test to make sure the engine was performing properly. SMART-1 will use this engine over the next 18 months to gradually maneuver out of the geosynchronous transfer orbit its Ariane 5 booster deposited the spacecraft into and eventually put it into orbit around the Moon. SMART-1 is the first ESA spacecraft to use an ion engine and only the second spacecraft overall, after NASA's Deep Space 1 spacecraft, to use an ion engine as its primary propulsion system. Ion thrusters have been used on a number of GEO satellites as stationkeeping thrusters.