/sci/ - Science & Math

>>14858049
>SEP is only good for station keeping.
Oh look, this baka again. If your point made any sense, it would go for the whole of low thrust propulsion, including nuclear electric and the direct fusion drive, all candidates for propulsion that could beat chemical to most interplanetary destinations, either in transit time/delta-v or in maximum payload. The increased payload ratio why SEP has become the defacto choice for satellites maneuvering from GTO to GEO. Every Starlink satellite uses SEP for raising orbit, station keeping, and subsequent deorbiting.
>And such low thrust you need 2-3x as much delta-V to do an equivalent orbit change.
Good thing a spacecraft with 10x the Isp has 10x the delta-v at the same dry mass to wet mass ratio, but a low thrust maneuver only approaches a 2x increase in delta-v if the radius of the final orbit is 100x that of the initial orbit, assuming escape velocity isn't reached first. For that to be true it's like injecting an interplanetary spacecraft into LEO instead of an orbit with high eccentricity, which would only happen if it was massive, even then it could be refueled and take on passengers just before spiraling out of Earth escape.


https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/34114/ratio-of-low-thrust-slow-spiral-to-hohmann-transfer-delta-v