Ion engine

"I've never been inside an ion engine before."
"It'd be weirder if you had."

The ion thrust engine from a *Venator*-class Star Destroyer

Ion engines (also called ion drives and ion thrusters) were a common type of sublight drive. The drives generated charged particles that were then hurled from the rear of the ship, producing thrust in the process.^[1] Unlike many other starship engines, ion engines had no moving parts and no high-temperature components.^[2] Because of this, they required much less maintenance, a time and cost-saving factor that led them to be used expansively in the Imperial Navy.^[2] Notably, many starfighter models in the TIE line were all equipped with twin ion engines.^[3] The byproduct of such engines, the ion exhaust, made the passage of a ship detectable to sensors.^[4]