When Magnetic sail (MagSail) spacecraft is operated in space, the supersonic solar wind plasma flow is blocked by an artificially produced magnetic cavity to accelerate the spacecraft in the direction leaving the Sun. To evaluate the momentum transferring process from the solar wind to the coil onboard the MagSail spacecraft, we arranged a laboratory experiment of MagSail spacecraft. Based on scaling considerations, a solenoidal coil was immersed into the plasma flow from a magnetoplasmadynamic arcjet in a quasi‐steady mode of about 1 ms duration. In this setup, it is confirmed that a magnetic cavity, which is similar to that of the geomagnetic field, was formed around the coil to produce thrust in the ion Larmor scale interaction. Also, the controllability of magnetic cavity size by a plasma jet from inside the coil of MagSail is demonstrated, although the thrust characteristic of the MagSail with plasma jet, which is so called plasma sail, is to be clarified in our next step.
Scale‐model Experiment of Magnetoplasma Sail for Future Deep Space Missions
BEAMED ENERGY PROPULSION: Fifth International Symposium on Beamed Energy Propulsion ; 2007 ; Kailua‐Kona (Hawaii)
AIP Conference Proceedings ; 997 , 1 ; 553-560
2008-04-28
8 pages
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
Scale-model Experiment of Magnetoplasma Sail for Future Deep Space Missions
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