This was it hand wave, this assumption, this yes yes at the heart of our long-term space programs. If we manage to send astronauts to the Moon, we will find ice there. And if we find this ice in sufficient quantities, we will break it down into hydrogen and oxygen and yes yeswe will employ this fuel to fly deeper into the solar system and maybe even to Mars. And if we reach Mars, we will find even more ice on the Red Planet. We’ll extract it, combine it with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and yes yesWe’ll employ it to send the astronauts back.
It’s an idea that’s been around since the Apollo era and has been touted in recent years by people like a former NASA administrator Bill Nelson and SpaceX Elon Musk. But the thing is, no one has ever managed to turn water into rocket fuel, especially for a enormous spacecraft. A startup called General Galactic, run by a pair of twenty-something engineers, wants to be the first.
This fall, General Galactic plans to launch a 1,500-pound satellite into orbit using water as the only fuel in orbit. If it works, it may not only begin to solve the problem yes yes problem, could make U.S. satellites more maneuverable at a time when the risk of conflict in space is growing.
“Everyone wants to build a base on the moon or Mars or whatever. Who’s going to pay for it? How does it actually work?” – asks Halen Mattison, CEO of General Galactic. “Our vision is to build a gas station on Mars,” he adds, “but also to ultimately build a refueling network” between them.
That’s what it is Very at least a long-term plan. For starters, Mattison, a former SpaceX engineer, and his chief technology officer, Luke Neise, a Varda Space veteran, have purchased a launch site for the Falcon 9 rocket. The launch is scheduled for October or later in the fall.
To put it very simply, there are two main types of engines that can be used in a spacecraft. You can take a fuel such as liquid methane, combine it with an oxidizer and burn it. This is called chemical propulsion, and every enormous rocket you’ve ever launched uses some variation of this method because it provides a lot of thrust even if it’s not very competent.
You can also take a gas such as xenon, power it with electricity, and launch it from a spacecraft as ionized gas or plasma. This is called electric propulsion – again, I’m simplifying a lot. “It has very, very low thrust. People jokingly call it a space burp,” Mattison says. “But it takes forever. The efficiency is crazy.” Enough burping over time can be quite effective. Electric propulsion is used to keep satellites in the correct orbit and power such space probes Dawnthat NASA sent to explore the asteroid belt.
Water is not ideal for electrical or chemical propulsion. But it might be enough Both. Unlike, say, liquid methane, you don’t have to worry about water accidentally blowing up the spacecraft, cooling it to -260 degrees Fahrenheit, or boiling when the satellite is pointed at the sun.
General Galactic plans to demonstrate both methods during its Trinity mission. For chemical propulsion, it will employ electrolysis to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, then burn the hydrogen using oxygen as the oxidant. In the case of an electric powertrain – this one is called ““Hall’s thruster”— it will split the water and then deliver enough electricity to turn the oxygen into plasma. From there, you employ a magnetic field to shape the plasma and fire it.