Powered by ion propulsion instead of conventional rocket fuel, Dawn slid around Vesta on July 15 after a 1.7 billion-mile cruise.

以离子助推而非传统火箭燃料的“黎明号”在7月15日进入灶神星轨道之前已进行了一次17亿英里的巡航。

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The exhaust velocity, though, is enormous—more than ten times that of a chemical rocket—and this makes ion propulsion extremely efficient.

但其排气速度却异常惊人，大约为化学燃料火箭的十倍—这使得离子推进器的效率非常高。

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The shade would consist of individual craft around one metre across, put into position using a combination of magnetic launchers and ion propulsion.

遮阳天棚将由宽大约为一米的个体飞行物组成，并通过受到磁性发射装置与离子推进的综合作用而被定位。

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"We will use the tremendous capabilities of this ion propulsion system to climb out of orbit around Vesta, travel for almost another three years through the asteroid belt to dwarf planet Ceres and then go into orbit around Ceres and undertake the same kind of measurements there that we'll be doing at Vesta.

VOA: special.2011.07.27

While the ship will not travel at warp speed, with an ion propulsion engine powered by a 1.5GW nuclear reactor, it can travel at a constant acceleration so that the ship can easily get to key points of interest in our solar system.

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The ELR will run on an electric propulsion system made of a T-shaped lithium ion battery, an electric drive unit and a four-cylinder engine generator.

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