Ion thrusters to reduce gravity mission drag

It got a contract worth £4.6 million from European Space Mission (ESA) contractor Astrium to provide two ion thruster assemblies for the GOCE spacecraft, which will be launched later this year.

The spacecraft will speed along at eight kilometres a second at an altitude of 240 kilometres but will have a small disturbance from atmospheric drag.

Because that drag is variable, the ion thrusters will be used to compensate for these effects. Qinetiq said the precision of the ion thrusters has been compared to "compensating for a snow flake landing on the deck of a super tanker". µ