3Heiser, W H, Pratt, D T, with Daley, D H, and Mehta, U B, “Hypersonic Airbreathing Propulsion,” AIAA Education Series, AIAA, Washington, DC, 1994, pp 334–370 4Chinzei, N, Komuro, T, Kudo, K, Murakami, A, Tani, K, Masuya, G, and Wakamatsu, Y, “Effects of Injector Geometry on Scramjet Combustor Performance,” Journal of Propulsion and Power, Vol 9, No 1, 1993, pp 146–152 5Chinzei, N, Masuya, G, Kudo, K, Murakami, A, and Komuro, T, “Experiment on Multiple Fuel Supplies to Airbreathing Rocket Combustors,” Journal of Propulsion and Power, Vol 3, No 1, 1987, pp 26–32

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Electric Sail for Spacecraft Propulsion

The application of gas discharge plasmas has assumed an important place in many manufacturing processes. Plasma methods contribute significantly to the economic prosperity of industrialized societies. However, plasma is mainly an enabling method and therefore its role remains often hidden. Hence the success of plasma technologies is described for different examples and commercial areas. From these examples and emerging applications, the potential of plasma technologies is discussed. Economic trends are anticipated together with research needs. The community of plasma scientists strongly believes that more exciting advances will continue to foster innovations and discoveries in the first decades of the 21st century, if research and education will be properly funded and sustained by public bodies and industrial investors.

The future for plasma science and technology

HE overriding goal of advanced space propulsion is to reduce the costs of doing space missions, and to enable totally new types of missions that basically could not be performed (even at essentially unlimited cost) with existing technology. For example, with Earth-launch costs on the order of $10,000 per kilogram (comparable to the current cost of gold!) of delivered payload, one important application of advanced propulsion is to reduce thecostofaccessto space(andtransportation oncein space), both in the initial Earth-launch vehicle and then in the in-space vehicles, by reducing the total mass (most of which is propellant) that must be launched from Earth. This can be achieved by either developing more efe cient, higher-performance (i.e., higher specie c impulse Isp/ propulsion technologies, or by reducing the propellant requirements by reducing dry mass, mission velocity 1V, and so on. (Note however that launch cost is strongly driven by launch frequency; 1 thus, some advanced propulsion concepts attempt to both improve performance and increase launch rate.) A second goal of advanced propulsion is the ability to perform previously “ impossible” missions. An example of an impossible mission is attempting an interstellar mission using chemical propulsion. No matter how large the rocket, no matter how many stages it has, you simply cannot achieve the speeds (typically at least 10%of the speed of light) required for a practical interstellar mission using a chemical propulsion system. More generally, it is not practical to performaspace mission wherethe mission 1V isgreater than afew (e.g., two to three) times the propulsion system’ s exhaust velocity Vexhaust or, equivalently, Isp. Ultimately,theperformanceofanyrocketislimitedbytheRocket

Advanced Space Propulsion for the 21st Century

Celestial mechanics has traditionally been concerned with orbital motion under the action of a conservative gravitational potential. In particular, the inverse square gravitational force due to the potential of a uniform, spherical mass leads to a family of conic section orbits, as determined by Isaac Newton, who showed that Kepler‟s laws were derivable from his theory of gravitation. While orbital motion under the action of a conservative gravitational potential leads to an array of problems with often complex and interesting solutions, the addition of non-conservative forces offers new avenues of investigation. In particular, non-conservative forces lead to a rich diversity of problems associated with the existence, stability and control of families of highly non-Keplerian orbits generated by a gravitational potential and a non-conservative force. Highly non-Keplerian orbits can potentially have a broad range of practical applications across a number of different disciplines. This review aims to summarize the combined wealth of literature concerned with the dynamics, stability and control of highly non-Keplerian orbits for various low thrust propulsion devices, and to demonstrate some of these potential applications.

/pdf/survey-of-highly-non-keplerian-orbits-with-low-thrust-4azkpvo9gu.pdf

Survey of Highly Non-Keplerian Orbits with Low-Thrust Propulsion

[1] The Sub-keV Atom Reflecting Analyzer (SARA) instrument on the Indian Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft has produced for the first time an image of a lunar magnetic anomaly in backscattered hydrogen atoms The image shows that a partial void of the solar wind, a mini-magnetosphere, is formed above the strong magnetic anomaly near the Crisium antipode The mini-magnetosphere is 360 km across at the surface and is surrounded by a 300-km-thick region of enhanced plasma flux that results from the solar wind flowing around the mini-magnetosphere The mini-magnetosphere is visible only in hydrogen atoms with energy exceeding 150 eV Fluxes with energies below 100 eV do not show corresponding spatial variations While the high-energy atoms result from the backscattering process, the origin of the low-energy component is puzzling These observations reveal a new class of objects, mini-magnetospheres, and demonstrate a new observational technique to study airless bodies, imaging in backscattered neutral atoms

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2009GL041721

First observation of a mini-magnetosphere above a lunar magnetic anomaly using energetic neutral atoms

Mini-Magnetospheric Plasma Propulsion is a potentially revolutionary plasma propulsion concept that could enable spacecraft to travel out of the solar system at unprecedented speeds of 50 to 80 km s -1 or could enable travel between the planets for low power requirements of ∼ 1 kW per 100 kg of payload and 0.5 kg fuel consumption per day for acceleration periods of several days to a few weeks. The high efficiency and specific impulse attained by the system are due to its utilization of ambient energy, in this case the energy of the solar wind, to provide the enhanced thrust. Coupling to the solar wind is produced through a large-scale magnetic bubble or mini-magnetosphere generated by the injection of plasma into the magnetic field supported by solenoid coils on the spacecraft. This inflation is driven by electromagnetic processes, so that the material and deployment problems associated with mechanical sails are eliminated.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/1999JA000334

J. Slough

Papers

Mini-Magnetospheric Plasma Propulsion: Tapping the energy of the solar wind for spacecraft propulsion