News

February 8, 2024
Richard Hofer was elected as AIAA Fellow "For revolutionizing Hall thruster design and pioneering leadership in electric propulsion that has enabled new, groundbreaking space missions." Since the inception of this honor 2,064 persons have been elected as an AIAA Fellow.

February 6, 2024
John Brophy was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE Class of 2024) "For technical leadership in development and flight implementation of electric propulsion in spacecraft systems." Membership in the NAE is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. There are only 2,310 members of the NAE in a country with several million engineers. The first of only five EP technologists ever to be elected to the NAE was Yvonne Brille (YVONNE C. BRILL 1924-2013).

October 13, 2023
NASA's Psyche spacecraft successfully launched at 10:19 a.m. EDT Friday aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Psyche will use 4, 4.5 kW Hall thrusters provided by Maxar on a 2.2 billion mile journey to a metal-rich asteroid in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

September 20, 2021
The long-duration wear test of JPL’s MaSMI Hall thruster successfully completed having demonstrated a propellant throughput of over 100 kg of xenon and demonstrated a total of 1.55 MNs of impulse over 7205 h of operation. This marks the world’s first long-duration wear test of a low-power magnetically shielded Hall thruster with a center-mounted hollow cathode wherein over 100 kg Xe throughput was demonstrated.

The National Aeronautic Association (NAA) announced at their Spring Awards Dinner that the NASA/JPL Dawn Program Team has been named as the recipient of the 2015 Robert J. Collier Trophy “In recognition of the extraordinary achievements of orbiting and exploring protoplanet Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres, and advancing the nation’s technological capabilities in pioneering new frontiers in space travel.” The Collier Trophy is awarded annually "...for the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America, with respect to improving the performance, efficiency, and safety of air or space vehicles, the value of which has been thoroughly demonstrated by actual use during the preceding year." The list of Collier recipients represents a timeline of air and space achievements, marking major events in the history of flight. Previous Collier recipients from JPL include Mars Science Laboratory (2012), Voyager (1980), and Surveyor (1967).

As of Jan 10, 2016, all eight Colloid Micronewton Thrusters (CMT) on the LISA Pathfinder spacecraft passed their functional tests, becoming the first operation of electrospray thrusters in space. The CMT's were developed by Busek with technical support from JPL.

The AIAA Electric Propulsion Technical Committee has recognized Ioannis Mikellides, Ira Katz, Richard Hofer, and Dan Goebel with the 2014 AIAA Electric Propulsion Outstanding Technical Achievement Award, "For the identification, development and demonstration of magnetic shielding in Hall thrusters."

The Dawn spacecraft will enter orbit around Ceres using its Ion Propulsion System (IPS) on March 6, 2015.

Feb. 10, 2015
Dr. Dan Goebel has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, the highest professional distinction for engineers. Goebel is being honored for his contributions to low-temperature plasma sources for thin-film manufacturing, plasma materials interactions and electric propulsion.

The 20th Advanced Space Propulsion Workshop will be held at the Ohio Aerospace Institute near the NASA John H. Glenn Research Center, on November 17-20, 2014. ASPW is organized by JPL, NASA Glenn Research Center, and the Ohio Aerospace Institute.

July 12, 2013
The AIAA Electric Propulsion Technical Committee has recognized the paper, "Conducting Wall Hall Thrusters," by D.M. Goebel, R. Hofer, I.G. Mikellides, I. Katz, J. Polk, and B. Dotson as the Best Paper in Electric Propulsion from the 2013 AIAA Joint Propulsion Conference. The JPL Electric Propulsion Group has won this award 9 out of 10 times since 2004.

December 23, 2013
JPL researchers have shown how a new technology called magnetic shielding significantly increases the life of Hall thrusters while enabling operating voltages 100 percent higher than previously demonstrated.