Technical
Electric Propulsion
A class of spacecraft propulsion that accelerates propellant using electrical energy, achieving high efficiency at low thrust.
Electric propulsion systems — such as Hall-effect and ion thrusters — use electrical power to ionise and accelerate a propellant, producing a very high specific impulse (fuel efficiency) but low thrust.
This efficiency reduces propellant mass for station-keeping, orbit raising, and end-of-life disposal, though manoeuvres take longer than with chemical propulsion. Propellant budgets expressed in delta-v drive how much manoeuvring, and therefore lifetime, a satellite has.