With SpaceX continuing the testing phase for Starship and enthusiasm spreading for an effective manned flight to Mars, an interesting concept of a magnetic rocket designed by physicist Fatima Ebrahimi of the US Department of Energy (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) could make the mission much more cost effective.
The feasibility of safe and durable propulsion systems that will surpass the performance of traditional chemical rocket engines in deep space travel, not only in our own solar system, but perhaps one day in a distant galaxy outside the Milky Way, is primarily in the minds of astrophysicists.
Ionic thrusters, once the standard acceleration mode for sci-fi fantasy authors and now the preferred positioning engine for NASA scientists and engineers on their satellites, may have higher endurance and are much cheaper to operate, but generate a tiny amount of momentum for accelerating purposes. This is not exactly a viable option for a trip to the red planet, where hundreds of tons of spacecraft are moving in the sky.
Ebrahimi’s Princeton team has developed a new concept that involves using the same basic cosmic mechanism that helps keep the sun’s rays out of our Sun. These violent eruptions consist of charged atoms and particles known as plasma, which are trapped in intense magnetic fields. Their findings were published in the online research site, Journal of Plasma Physics.
To harness this dynamic energy in an efficient propulsion system, Ebrahimi targets a type of interaction called magnetic reconnection, which is where the magnetic fields in high-charge plasma environments automatically restructure to converge, separate, and reconverge.
The consequences of this cyclic reaction are an impressive power of kinetic energy, thermal energy and particle acceleration. This phenomenon is not limited to stars, but also occurs in the atmosphere of our planet and in Tokamak fusion reactors, such as the National Spherical Torus Experiment of PPPL.
This innovative propellant produces motion by evacuating both plasma particles and magnetic bubbles known as plasmoids, which increase the propulsive power.
“The long-distance journey takes months or years, because the specific momentum of chemical rocket engines is very low, so it takes some time for the boat to reach speed,” explains Ebrahimi. “But if we make propulsors based on magnetic reconnection, then we could complete long-distance missions in a shorter period of time. While other engines require heavy gases, made up of atoms such as xenon, in this concept you can use any type of gas you want. ”
A magnetic thruster works in ways like modern ionic thrusters, which are becoming more common on a wide range of probes and spacecraft. They work by charging a fuel base made up of heavy atoms such as xenon, then introducing an electric field and causing them to accelerate. In Ebrahmi’s interesting concept, magnetic fields are recruited for the acceleration task.
Currently, computer simulations derived from PPPL computers and the National Center for Scientific Computing for Energy Research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, indicate that magnetic reconnection propellants can theoretically manufacture exhaust velocities ten times faster than any other system. electric propulsion currently used.
“This work was inspired by past fusion work and is the first time plasmosis and reconnection have been proposed for space propulsion,” Ebrahimi added. “The next step is to build a prototype!”