Question: Hi, i'm very intrested in how rockets are being built and how they work. How are you building the mini rocket thrusters? When are you planning to be able to use them? How do you think it will impact on gathering impact from space? do you think it will help?

Charlie Ryan answered on 15 Mar 2011:

hi charlieloubones thanks for your question. It was great chatting to you and the other students at thirstley high school earlier today. Chatting twice that is!
Wow that’s a lot of questions…ok here goes!
The mini rockets are a type of ion thruster. This is different to the rockets that propel the space shuttle, which burn to different chemicals (in the case of the shuttle main engines, this is oxygen and hydrogen). Instead our rockets create positively charged ions. These are then attracted to a negatively charged grid, and accelerate away into space through holes in the grid. Simple really!
At the moment we are testing them, to make sure they are reliable and will work in space. currently though they’re not, so my job is quite stressful!! We test them in vauum chambers that simulate the space environment.
We hope to put one on a spacecraft within 6 years, although we’re not sure when really – it matters how things go.
they will help because they will allow small spaceccraft to do much more complicated jobs in space, as with these mini thrusters the pointing (i.e. orientation) of the satellite can be controlled. So you can then hopefully, for example, use the thrusters to point the spacecraft in a certain direction to then take a picture of the earths surface. They will make this a lot cheaper.
Well that’s the plan anyway!! Any more questions ask away!