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My name is Dave Manzella, I’m the Chief
Engineer for the Solar Electric Propulsion

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Program at NASA Glenn.

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Music
The Solar Electric Propulsion Program is a

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program we’re developing next generation
space propulsion technologies that could one

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day be used to send men to Mars.

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Right now were working to develop systems
that could be operated at about 50 kilowatts

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of electrical power.

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That’s about 5 to 10 times greater than
the power level that are currently being used.

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The work that we’re doing would be used
to send cargo and payload logistics resupply,

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things like that to Mars in advance of crew
getting there, because the power level that

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we’re developing results in trip times that
are too long for a crew.

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That same technology that we’re developing
now is also been used for deep space robotic

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missions.

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There is a NASA mission called DAWN which
has gone to the main belt asteroids and is

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currently orbiting Vesta.

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What’s exciting about electric propulsion
is that we’re generating systems at high

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enough power that one day we could actually
send crew and missions to Mars.

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To date the power levels that we’ve been
operating on have worked very well for small

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deep space probes or for space craft in orbit
around Earth but if we want to send large

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payloads and human crewed missions beyond
Earth space, we’re going need this high