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Steam-propelled spacecraft
December 8 , 2022
721 days
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- In a world first, Japan's space agency announced it successfully used steam to propel a spacecraft - EQUULEUS toward the Moon.
- It was launched as one of the payloads aboard Nasa’s Orion spacecraft.
- As per JAXA, this is the world’s first successful orbit control beyond low-Earth orbit using a water propellant propulsion system.
- It uses waste heat from the communication kit to convert the water into steam that is squirted out to produce thrust.
- The CubeSat is expected to reach the second Earth-Moon Lagrange point (EML2) in approximately one-and-a-half years.
- Lagrangian points are locations in space where the gravity of large objects, such as planets, are balanced out by the centrifugal force of a spacecraft, allowing for a very stable orbit.
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