EUROPE’s Smart-1 spacecraft, which is en route to the moon, has an engine problem that could leave the vehicle stranded in space. Engineers at the European Space Agency are hard at work on software they hope will rescue the probe, and plan to transmit it to the spacecraft next week.
Smart-1 is powered by an ion engine, which produces thrust in one direction by accelerating xenon ions in an electric field in the other direction. Although this creates only about the same force as the weight of a postcard, the engine works continuously, gradually increasing the size of the spacecraft’s…
