Progress toward developing an evaluation process for interstellar propulsion and power options is described. The goal is to contrast the challenges, mission choices, and emerging prospects for propulsion and power, to identify which prospects might be more advantageous and under what circumstances, and to identify which technology details might have greater impacts. Unlike prior studies, the infrastructure expenses and prospects for breakthrough advances are included. This first year's focus is on determining the key questions to enable the analysis. Accordingly, a work breakdown structure to organize the information and associated list of variables is offered. A flow diagram of the basic analysis is presented, as well as more detailed methods to convert the performance measures of disparate propulsion methods into common measures of energy, mass, time, and power. Other methods for equitable comparisons include evaluating the prospects under the same assumptions of payload, mission trajectory, and available energy. Missions are divided into three eras of readiness (precursors, era of infrastructure, and era of breakthroughs) as a first step before proceeding to include comparisons of technology advancement rates. Final evaluation "figures of merit" are offered. Preliminary lists of mission architectures and propulsion prospects are provided.


    Zugriff

    Zugriff über TIB

    Verfügbarkeit in meiner Bibliothek prüfen


    Exportieren, teilen und zitieren



    Titel :

    Breakthrough Propulsion Study: Assessing Interstellar Flight Challenges and Prospects


    Beteiligte:
    Marc G. Millis (Autor:in) / Greason, Jeff (Autor:in) / Stevenson, Rhonda (Autor:in)

    Erscheinungsdatum :

    2018-06-01


    Medientyp :

    Sonstige


    Format :

    Keine Angabe


    Sprache :

    Englisch




    Breakthrough propulsion architecture for interstellar precursor missions

    Strange, Nathan / Nesmith, Bill / Weinstein, Stacy et al. | NTRS | 2018


    Prospects for Interstellar Propulsion

    R. J. Litchford / J. A. Sheehy | NTIS | 2020


    Prospects for Interstellar Propulsion

    Litchford, Ronald J. / Sheehy, Jeffrey A. | NTRS | 2020


    Interstellar probe: breakthrough science enabled by nuclear propulsion

    Zurbuchen, T.H. / Prashant, P. / Gallimore, A. et al. | IEEE | 2005


    Interstellar Probe: Breakthrough Science Enabled by Nuclear Propulsion

    Zurbuchen, T. H. / Prashant, P. / Gallimore, A. et al. | AIAA | 2004