The engineers of Russia's Energia Rocket and Space Corporation (RSC) have been testing an iodine-fueled electric jet engine, the corporation said on Thursday.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th November, 2018) The engineers of Russia's Energia Rocket and Space Corporation (RSC) have been testing an iodine-fueled electric jet engine, the corporation said on Thursday."Land-based experiments to examine the work of а new electric jet engine running on iodine are being carried out at RSC Energia," the corporation said in a statement.
According to the statement, following the tests on Earth, work will be continued at the International Space Station (ISS) as part of an experiment dubbed "Ostrovsky."
The space experiment Ostrovsky was named after Valery Ostrovsky, a senior scientist at RSC Energia, who first suggested using iodine-fueled electric jet engines. The main advantage of an engine running on iodine is its cost-effectiveness. Iodine is much cheaper than xenon, which is currently used as fuel for electric jet engines, and does not need complicated storage and supply systems.
