this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2024
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UN banned Apollo Fusion's business model of using mercury rocket propellant to launch satellites into space (spectrum.ieee.org)
submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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UN banned Apollo Fusion's business model of using mercury rocket propellant to launch satellites into space::Startup Apollo Fusion was building thrusters that could have contaminated the upper atmosphere with the toxic metal

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[–] AnonStoleMyPants@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 year ago

It's an ion thruster, not a rocket per say. You cannot use it in lower atmosphere at all (well you can but it doesn't do much), unfortunately some of the propellant would still find its way to the atmosphere.

The market of small thrusters for steering satellites is much larger than building actual rockets that take those satellites to orbit.