An electrodynamic bare tether has been considered as an alternative method of propulsion without expenditure of propellant. The object of the work reported here is the development of a numerical method, Particle-In-Cell (PIC) method, for the calculation of electron current to a positive bare tether moving at orbital velocity in the ionosphere, i.e. in a flowing magnetized plasma under Maxwellian collisionless conditions. In a PIC code, a number of particles are distributed in phase space and the computational domain has a grid on which the Poisson equation is solved for field quantities. The code uses the quasi-neutrality condition to solve for the local potential at points in the plasma which coincide with the computational outside boundary. Given the boundary conditions, Poisson equations is solved in such a way that the presheath region can be captured in the computation. Electrons are assumed to have a Maxwellian distribution at the boundary due to their high mobility, whereas ions are assumed so only in the far upstream region and are also assumed to only decelerate one-dimensionally due to their large mass. Results show that the collected current is higher than the Orbital Motion Limit (OML) theory. As a possible cause of this current enhancement, field oscillation has been recognized and also some numerical effects have been detected.


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    Titel :

    Computation of a moving bare tether


    Beteiligte:
    Onishi, Tatsuo (Autor:in) / Martinez-Sanchez, Manuel (Autor:in) / Cooke, David L. (Autor:in) / El-Genk, Mohamed S. (Herausgeber:in) / Bragg, Mary J. (Herausgeber:in)

    Kongress:

    Space Technology and Applications International Forum - 2001 ; 2001 ; Albuquerque, New Mexico


    Erschienen in:

    AIP Conference Proceedings ; 552 , 1 ; 488-493


    Erscheinungsdatum :

    02.02.2001


    Format / Umfang :

    6 pages





    Medientyp :

    Aufsatz (Konferenz)


    Format :

    Elektronische Ressource


    Sprache :

    Englisch



    Computation of current to a moving bare tether

    Onishi, Tatsuo / Martinez-Sanchez, Manuel / Cooke, David | AIAA | 2000


    Computation of Current to a Moving Bare Tether

    Onishi, T. / Martinez-Sanchez, M. / Cooke, D. L. et al. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2000


    Computation of Current to a Moving Bare Tether

    Onishi, T. / Martinez-Sanchez, M. / Cooke, D. L. et al. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 1999


    Computation of Current Collection by a Moving Bare Tether

    Onishi, T. / Martinez-Sanchez, M. / Cooke, D. L. et al. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2001


    Technology of Bare Tether Current Collection

    Estes, R. D. / Sanmartin, J. R. / Martinez-Sanchez, M. et al. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 1998