Interplanetary Travel: Continuous Thrust

Electric propulsion is characterized by values of the specific impulse much higher than those typical of thermal (chemical or nuclear) rockets but produces much lower thrusts. This is obviated by using the thruster for long periods of time or even for the whole travel. The design of the trajectory must be thus integrated with that of the thrust profile and it is possible to obtain very good performance in this way, at the cost of much larger design complexity.