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An electric current is a flow of charged particles, such as electrons or ions, moving through an electrical conductor or space. It is defined as the net rate of flow of electric charge through a surface. The moving particles are called charge carriers, which may be one of several types of particles, depending on the conductor. In electric circuits the charge carriers are often electrons moving through a wire. In semiconductors they can be electrons or holes. In an electrolyte the charge carriers are ions, while in plasma, an ionized gas, they are ions and electrons.
Spacecraft propulsion is any method used to accelerate spacecraft and artificial satellites. In-space propulsion exclusively deals with propulsion systems used in the vacuum of space and should not be confused with space launch or atmospheric entry.
In spacecraft propulsion, a Hall-effect thruster (HET) is a type of ion thruster in which the propellant is accelerated by an electric field. Hall-effect thrusters are sometimes referred to as Hall thrusters or Hall-current thrusters. Hall-effect thrusters use a magnetic field to limit the electrons' axial motion and then use them to ionize propellant, efficiently accelerate the ions to produce thrust, and neutralize the ions in the plume. The Hall-effect thruster is classed as a moderate specific impulse space propulsion technology and has benefited from considerable theoretical and experimental research since the 1960s.
An ion thruster, ion drive, or ion engine is a form of electric propulsion used for spacecraft propulsion. An ion thruster creates a cloud of positive ions from a neutral gas by ionizing it to extract some electrons from its atoms. The ions are then accelerated using electricity to create thrust. Ion thrusters are categorized as either electrostatic or electromagnetic.
A mass driver or electromagnetic catapult is a proposed method of non-rocket spacelaunch which would use a linear motor to accelerate and catapult payloads up to high speeds. Existing and proposed mass drivers use coils of wire energized by electricity to make electromagnets, though a rotary mass driver has also been proposed. Sequential firing of a row of electromagnets accelerates the payload along a path. After leaving the path, the payload continues to move due to momentum.
A magnetic sail is a proposed method of spacecraft propulsion where an onboard magnetic field source interacts with a plasma wind to form an artificial magnetosphere that acts as a sail, transferring force from the wind to the spacecraft requiring little to no propellant as detailed for each proposed magnetic sail design in this article.
Magnetohydrodynamics is a model of electrically conducting fluids that treats all interpenetrating particle species together as a single continuous medium. It is primarily concerned with the low-frequency, large-scale, magnetic behavior in plasmas and liquid metals and has applications in multiple fields including geophysics, astrophysics, and engineering.
Nuclear pulse propulsion or external pulsed plasma propulsion is a hypothetical method of spacecraft propulsion that uses nuclear explosions for thrust. It originated as Project Orion with support from DARPA, after a suggestion by Stanislaw Ulam in 1947. Newer designs using inertial confinement fusion have been the baseline for most later designs, including Project Daedalus and Project Longshot.
The Levitated Dipole Experiment (LDX) was an experiment investigating the generation of fusion power using the concept of a levitated dipole. The device was the first of its kind to test the levitated dipole concept and was funded by the US Department of Energy. The machine was also part of a collaboration between the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center and Columbia University, where another (non-levitated) dipole experiment, the Collisionless Terrella Experiment (CTX), was located.
The Global Geospace Science (GGS) Wind satellite is a NASA science spacecraft designed to study radio waves and plasma that occur in the solar wind and in the Earth's magnetosphere. It was launched on 1 November 1994, at 09:31:00 UTC, from launch pad LC-17B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS) in Merritt Island, Florida, aboard a McDonnell Douglas Delta II 7925-10 rocket. Wind was designed and manufactured by Martin Marietta Astro Space Division in East Windsor Township, New Jersey. The satellite is a spin-stabilized cylindrical satellite with a diameter of 2.4 m and a height of 1.8 m.
The electrodeless plasma thruster is a spacecraft propulsion engine commercialized under the acronym "E-IMPAcT" for "Electrodeless-Ionization Magnetized Ponderomotive Acceleration Thruster". It was created by Gregory Emsellem, based on technology developed by French Atomic Energy Commission scientist Dr Richard Geller and Dr. Terenzio Consoli, for high speed plasma beam production.
A plasma propulsion engine is a type of electric propulsion that generates thrust from a quasi-neutral plasma. This is in contrast with ion thruster engines, which generate thrust through extracting an ion current from the plasma source, which is then accelerated to high velocities using grids/anodes. These exist in many forms. However, in the scientific literature, the term "plasma thruster" sometimes encompasses thrusters usually designated as "ion engines".
Spacecraft electric propulsion is a type of spacecraft propulsion technique that uses electrostatic or electromagnetic fields to accelerate mass to high speed and thus generating thrust to modify the velocity of a spacecraft in orbit. The propulsion system is controlled by power electronics.
The magnetosphere of Jupiter is the cavity created in the solar wind by Jupiter's magnetic field. Extending up to seven million kilometers in the Sun's direction and almost to the orbit of Saturn in the opposite direction, Jupiter's magnetosphere is the largest and most powerful of any planetary magnetosphere in the Solar System, and by volume the largest known continuous structure in the Solar System after the heliosphere. Wider and flatter than the Earth's magnetosphere, Jupiter's is stronger by an order of magnitude, while its magnetic moment is roughly 18,000 times larger. The existence of Jupiter's magnetic field was first inferred from observations of radio emissions at the end of the 1950s and was directly observed by the Pioneer 10 spacecraft in 1973.
An electric sail is a proposed form of spacecraft propulsion using the dynamic pressure of the solar wind as a source of thrust. It creates a "virtual" sail by using small wires to form an electric field that deflects solar wind protons and extracts their momentum. The idea was first conceptualised by Pekka Janhunen in 2006 at the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
Field propulsion is the concept of spacecraft propulsion where no propellant is necessary but instead momentum of the spacecraft is changed by an interaction of the spacecraft with external force fields, such as gravitational and magnetic fields from stars and planets. Proposed drives that use field propulsion are often called a reactionless or propellantless drive.
A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to very high speeds and energies, and to contain them in well-defined beams. Large accelerators are used for fundamental research in particle physics. Accelerators are also used as synchrotron light sources for the study of condensed matter physics. Smaller particle accelerators are used in a wide variety of applications, including particle therapy for oncological purposes, radioisotope production for medical diagnostics, ion implanters for the manufacture of semiconductors, and accelerator mass spectrometers for measurements of rare isotopes such as radiocarbon.
A magnetorquer or magnetic torquer is a satellite system for attitude control, detumbling, and stabilization built from electromagnetic coils. The magnetorquer creates a magnetic dipole that interfaces with an ambient magnetic field, usually Earth's, so that the counter-forces produced provide useful torque.
A magnetic nozzle is a convergent-divergent magnetic field that guides, expands and accelerates a plasma jet into vacuum for the purpose of space propulsion. The magnetic field in a magnetic nozzle plays a similar role to the convergent-divergent solid walls in a de Laval nozzle, wherein a hot neutral gas is expanded first subsonically and then supersonically to increase thrust. Like a de Laval nozzle, a magnetic nozzle converts the internal energy of the plasma into directed kinetic energy, but the operation is based on the interaction of the applied magnetic field with the electric charges in the plasma, rather than on pressure forces acting on solid walls. The main advantage of a magnetic nozzle over a solid one is that it can operate contactlessly, i.e. avoiding the material contact with the hot plasma, which would lead to system inefficiencies and reduced lifetime of the nozzle. Additional advantages include the capability of modifying the strength and geometry of the applied magnetic field in-flight, allowing the nozzle to adapt to different propulsive requirements and space missions. Magnetic nozzles are the fundamental acceleration stage of several next-generation plasma thrusters currently under development, such as the helicon plasma thruster, the electron-cyclotron resonance plasma thruster, the VASIMR, and the applied-field magnetoplasmadynamic thruster. Magnetic nozzles also find another field of application in advanced plasma manufacturing processes, and their physics are related to those of several magnetic confinement plasma fusion devices.
Direct Fusion Drive (DFD) is a conceptual, low radioactivity, nuclear-fusion rocket engine, designed to produce both thrust and electric power, suitable for interplanetary spacecraft. The concept is based on the Princeton field-reversed configuration reactor, invented in 2002 by Samuel A. Cohen. It is being modeled and experimentally tested at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy facility, as well as modeled and evaluated by Princeton Satellite Systems (PSS). As of 2018, a direct fusion drive project driven by NASA is said to have entered its simulation phase, presented as the second phase of the concept's evolution.
References
- 1 2 Slough, John (September 30, 2006). "The Plasma Magnet, Phase II Study" (PDF). NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts. NASA. Retrieved 13 June 2022.
- 1 2 Greason, Jeffrey K. (2019-09-05). "A Reaction Drive". Tau Zero Foundation. Retrieved 2021-04-12.
- ↑ Nishida, H. (July 2005). Verification of Momentum Transfer Process on Magnetic Sail Using MHD Model. 41st AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference & Exhibit. Tucson, Arizona. doi:10.2514/6.2005-4463. ISBN 978-1-62410-063-5 . Retrieved June 13, 2022.
- ↑ Slough, John (March 23, 2004). "The Plasma Magnet" (PDF). www.niac.usra.edu.
- 1 2 3 4 5 "Plasma Magnet". earthweb.ess.washington.edu. Retrieved 2021-04-12.
- ↑ Gilster, Paul (19 November 2021). "Wind Rider: A High Performance Magsail". Centauri Dreams. Retrieved 15 December 2021.
