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When thrust is required, a strong electric field is generated by the application of a high voltage difference between the emitter and the accelerator. Under this condition, the free surface of the liquid metal enters a regime of local instability, due to the combined effects of the electrostatic force and the surface tension.
This imparts additional energy to the propellant, so that one can extract more work out of each kilogram of propellant, at the expense of increased power consumption and (usually) higher cost. Also, the thrust levels available from typically used arcjet engines are very low compared with chemical engines.
Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that system. [2] The force applied on a surface in a direction perpendicular or normal to the surface is also ...
In theory, MPD thrusters could produce extremely high specific impulses (I sp) with an exhaust velocity of up to and beyond 110 000 m/s, triple the value of current xenon-based ion thrusters, and about 25 times better than liquid rockets.
All three SSMEs must reach the required 90% thrust within three seconds; otherwise, an orderly shutdown is commanded and safing functions are initiated. Normal thrust buildup to the required 90% thrust level will result in the SSMEs being commanded to the lift off position at T−3 seconds as well as the fire 1 command being issued to arm the SRBs.
The device which controls the propeller pitch and thus speed is called a propeller governor or constant speed unit. Reversible propellers are those where the pitch can be set to negative values. This creates reverse thrust for braking or going backwards without the need to change the direction of shaft revolution.
A vernier thruster or gimbaled engine are particular cases used on launch vehicles where a secondary rocket engine or other high thrust device is used to control the attitude of the rocket, while the primary thrust engine (generally also a rocket engine) is fixed to the rocket and supplies the principal amount of thrust.
The thrust efficiency is the actual thrust as percentage of this. If, e.g., solar power is used, this restricts a {\displaystyle a} ; in the case of a large v e {\displaystyle v_{\text{e}}} the possible acceleration is inversely proportional to it, hence the time to reach a required delta-v is proportional to v e {\displaystyle v_{\text{e ...