Most powerful ion engine used in space

NASA's DART mission launched on 24 November 2021 with a newly developed ion engine more powerful than any sent beyond Earth before. Ion engines generate thrust by using electricity to accelerate heavy ionized atoms to incredibly high speeds. Compared to chemical thrusters, ion thrusters generate very light thrust (usually measured in millinewtons), but they are far more efficient in converting propellant mass into spacecraft acceleration than chemical engines are. Lucy flies with NASA's Evolutionary Xenon Thruster-Commercial (NEXT-C) engines, which are about three times as powerful as the NSTAR engines flown on the Deep Space 1 and Dawn missions. NEXT-C can operate with as much as 7.4 kilowatts of power and generate up to 235 millinewtons of thrust, but on DART they will be operated at a maximum of 3.5 kilowatts.