Ben BrockertDec 27, 2023

@lougrims Vaguely prompted by Lars, a question: does used metal propellant in LEO have enough energy/interact enough with solar wind to escape, or does it fall into the atmosphere?

If you had a Starlink constellation with metal stationkeeping, would everything in LEO get noticeably plated?

Show threadLouDec 27, 2023
@wikkit That would depend on the technology I guess. For our FEEP the ions are fast enough to get escape vecolity whatever the angle. The propellant droplets are slow (wrt the spacecraft) and super high surface to mass ratio but I don't know if that means they get dragged down.
Show threadBen BrockertDec 27, 2023

@lougrims I suppose that should have been obvious from the effective exhaust velocity.

Now I want a Hall thruster tuned to 750s so that the propellant just falls straight into Earth.

Show threadLouDec 27, 2023
@wikkit well some people had I know had a scare about using mercury on hall thrusters and potential fallback.
Show threadTimDec 28, 2023
@lougrims @wikkit I had some convos with some people who really wanted for us to get back into mercury testing, partially prompted I think by the effort your talking about. Nope, never again.
Show threadLou
@ezwal @wikkit I still find it insane that it was even on the table for a commercial project.
Dec 29, 2023 at 5:19amWeb
Show threadTimDec 29, 2023
@lougrims @wikkit Seems crazy to me, but I don’t live under the pressure these small companies do.