4 ms·

At 2:11 you can see it moving in a straight line.

• superkuh 8y ago
  Not shown: all the momentum imparted by the launch itself.
  • erbium 8y ago
    Shown: you, not reading the paper. https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0707-9 https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-01...
  • thinkcontext 8y ago
    For the Nature paper they compared unpowered vs powered flight. Unpowered got about 10m, powered got to 60m, the length of their test facility.
  • tzs 8y ago
    In that clip it is not slowing down, showing that the ion drive is generating sufficient thrust to sustain flight. It's irrelevant that it used assistance to initially reach that speed.