A team of students from Stanford University are making efforts to launch a satellite powered exclusively by water into orbit (轨道) around the Mars. The team names itself the Super Lunar Explorers.
These creative students are now attending a competition called the Future Space Challenge, which is held annually by NASA, the American space agency to find more talents in space. The winners will be publicized in about a month. The final three winners will be announced in early 2023. They will get to ride on NASA's space launch system in early 2024.
The principle behind the competition is simple: to think, design, build and launch "qualified small satellites." NASA officials required that the satellites must be able to perform "advanced operations near and beyond the moon." Twenty teams are competing for the championship. But the Super Lunar Explorer satellites are totally different. They use only water to power their spacecraft, which has never been done before.
Such a novel idea for a water-powered satellite came from Peckon Lewis, who works at Stanford University now, who once worked as NASA's chief technologist. He has always been wondering whether something other than rockets can be used to push spacecraft beyond earth. "A lot of things we send into space these days is with the help of rockets -- the only way we get anything into space," he said, in a Stanford press release. "But if we could try something that has been already there? If we could do that, if we could re-fuel spacecraft while they're already in space…"
The spacecraft is about 30 centimeters in length, and the two pieces are interconnected. The lower part of the satellite is designed to store water, which will be separated by solar panel into two elements: hydrogen and oxygen. When one combines hydrogen and oxygen with a spark (火花), an explosion was caused. This provides a forward movement, known as thrust.
