Ion Propulsion in the Atmosphere

The EU Innovation Council-funded project IProp - Ionic PROPulsion in Atmoshpere had its kickoff meeting on November 21 and 22 in Milan. Together with Politecnico di Milano, Università di Bologna, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace (ISAE-SUPAERO), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and Aeronord and under the coordination of our colleague Marco Belan from Politecnico di Milano, our goal is to bring ion propulsion out of the pioneer phase.

So far, ion propulsion has only been used in space, and now IPROP wants to explore its development potential for atmospheric applications to understand whether this technology can be widely used in the future. As part of the project, a real prototype of an airship equipped with ion propulsion will be built. This technology demonstrator is a first step towards applications at higher altitudes.  The potential applications of ion propulsion in the stratosphere are considered particularly promising, as these propulsion systems combine long, maintenance-free operating times and very low environmental impact.