ion engine

noun

: a reaction engine deriving thrust from the ejection of a stream of ionized particles

Examples of ion engine in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
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The task was to find a trajectory to the moon for a small spacecraft released from NASA's space shuttle that used low thrust solar electric propulsion from Xenon ion engines. Leonard David, Space.com, 27 Mar. 2025 The satellites separated from the rocket but at an altitude too low for the spacecraft's ion engines to overcome. Stephen Clark, Ars Technica, 15 July 2024 And by my calculations, the world’s annual production of xenon—the go-to propellant for ion engines—is insufficient to carry even a single solar-power satellite to GEO. IEEE Spectrum, 9 May 2024 The laser would bathe the panels in light a hundred times as bright as sunshine, keeping the ion engine running from here to Pluto, about 4 billion miles away. Corey S. Powell, Discover Magazine, 13 Mar. 2019

Word History

First Known Use

1958, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of ion engine was in 1958

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Cite this Entry

“Ion engine.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ion%20engine. Accessed 9 Sep. 2025.

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