GRC NEWS RELEASE 02-046



02-046
For Release: July 1, 2002



Katherine K. Martin
Media Relations Office
216/433-2406
katherine.martin@grc.nasa.gov



Lori J. Rachul
Media Relations Office
216/433-8806
lori.j.rachul@grc.nasa.gov


Glenn Chosen To Lead Development of NEXT Ion Engine 

NASA's Office of Space Science has awarded approximately $21 million 
to its Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, to develop a next generation 
ion propulsion system. This advanced system is an alternate to 
conventional chemical propulsion and could revolutionize the way we 
send science missions deeper in to the solar system.



Glenn was selected to lead development of NASA's Evolutionary Xenon 
Thruster (NEXT) system, which will use xenon gas and electrical power 
to drive future spacecraft. The NEXT Project is a two-part effort, 
with Phase 1 consisting of a one-year undertaking to design, build 
and test initial components. The second phase, dependent upon NASA's 
exercise of an option, would complete hardware development and 
integrate components into a full-scale system.



The major feature of NEXT is a thruster that utilizes design knowledge 
gained from the ion thruster that successfully propelled the Deep 
Space 1 to a flyby of asteroid Braille and the comet Borrelly. "NEXT 
more than triples the power level of Deep Space 1's ion thruster 
while increasing efficiency and system performance characteristics," 
said Mike Patterson, NEXT principal investigator at Glenn. "We have 
met our performance objectives with laboratory experiments of the 40 
cm diameter thruster."



The successful proposal for NEXT was developed by a team composed of 
Glenn, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; General 
Dynamics Space Propulsion Systems, Redmond, Wash.; Boeing Electron 
Dynamic Devices, Torrance, Calif.; Applied Physics Laboratory, 
Laurel, Md.; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.; and Colorado 
State University, Fort Collins, Colo.



Advanced power processing, xenon propellant management and thruster 
gimbal technologies will also be developed by the team to complete 
the NEXT ion propulsion system.



The technology advances made by NEXT over the previously used system 
will provide benefits to solar system exploration missions. "For 
missions to outer solar system planets, a NEXT system can shorten the 
interplanetary trip times and make it possible to go to multiple 
destinations, with less than half the thrusters, compared to the 
system using capabilities that powered Deep Space 1," said Scott 
Benson, Glenn's NEXT project manager.



NEXT was selected for award from the Research Opportunities in Space 
Science 2001 NASA Research Announcement, under the In-Space 
Propulsion Program in the Solar System Exploration Division of NASA's 
Office of Space Science. The In-Space Propulsion Program is managed 
by the Office of Space Science at NASA Headquarters in Washington 
D.C. and implemented by the Marshall Space Flight Center in 
Huntsville, Ala.



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