Redirected from Rocket propulsion
There are many different ways to accelerate spacecraft.
Below is a summary of some of the more popular, proven technologies, followed by increasingly speculative methods.
Method Specific Impulse (seconds) Thrust (Newtons) Duration
Conventional propulsion methods
Solid rocket 100-400 103- 107 minutes
Hybrid rocket 150-420 minutes
Monopropellant rocket 100-300 0.1-100 millliseconds - minutes
Momentum wheel (attitude control only) n/a 0.001-100 indefinite
Bipropellant rocket 100-400 0.1-107 minutes
Tripropellant rocket 250-450 minutes
Dual mode propulsion rocket
Air-augmented rocket 500-600 seconds-minutes Liquid air cycle engine 450 seconds-minutes
Resistojet rocket 200-600 10-2-10 minutes
Arcjet rocket 400-1200 10-2-10 minutes
Hall effect thruster (HET) 800-5000 10-3-10 months
Ion thruster 1500-8000 10-3-10 months
FEEP (Field Emission Electric Propulsion) 10000-13000 10-6-10-3 weeks
Magnetoplasmadynamic thruster (MPD) 2000-10000 100 weeks
Pulsed plasma thruster (PPT)
Pulsed inductive thruster (PIT) 5000 20 months
Variable specific impulse magnetoplasma rocket (VASIMR) 1000-30000 40-1200 days - months
Nuclear thermal rocket 900 105 minutes
Nuclear electric rocket As electric propulsion method used
Solar sails N/A 9 per km2 (at 1 AU) Indefinite
Mass drivers N/A Indefinite seconds
Tether propulsion N/A 1-1012 minutes
Technologies requiring more engineering development
Magnetic sails N/A Indefinite Indefinite
Mini-magnetospheric plasma propulsion N/A Indefinite Indefinite
Gaseous fission reactor 1000-2000 103-106
Nuclear pulse propulsion (Orion drive) 2000-100,000 109-1012 (not a misprint) half hour Antimatter catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion 2000-40,000 days-weeks
Nuclear salt-water rocket 10,000 103-107 half hour
Beam-powered propulsion As propulsion method powered by beam
Nuclear photonic rocket 5x106 1-105 years
Biefeld-Brown effect N/A 0.01-1 (currently) weeks, probably months
Significantly beyond current engineering
Fusion rocket
Bussard ramjet
Antimatter rocket
Requires new principles of physics
Alcubierre drive (Warp drive) Not Applicable
Wormholes
Time machines