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Combining Magnetic and Electric Sails for Interstellar Deceleration Nikolaos Perakis, Andreas Makoto Hein

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Combining Magnetic and Electric Sails for Interstellar Deceleration Nikolaos Perakis, Andreas Makoto Hein Combining Magnetic and Electric Sails for Interstellar Deceleration Nikolaos Perakis, Andreas Makoto Hein To cite this version: Nikolaos Perakis, Andreas Makoto Hein. Combining Magnetic and Electric Sails for Interstellar De- celeration. 2016. hal-01278907 HAL Id: hal-01278907 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01278907 Preprint submitted on 25 Feb 2016 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Combining Magnetic and Electric Sails for Interstellar Deceleration Nikolaos Perakisa,∗, Andreas M. Heinb aTechnical University of Munich, Boltzmannstr. 15, DE85748 Garching, Germany bInitiative for Interstellar Studies, 27-29 South Lambeth Road, London SW8 1SZ Abstract The main benefit of an interstellar mission is to carry out in-situ measurements within a target star system. To allow for extended in-situ measurements, the spacecraft needs to be decelerated. One of the currently most promising technologies for deceleration is the magnetic sail which uses the deflection of interstellar matter via a magnetic field to decelerate the spacecraft. However, while the magnetic sail is very efficient at high velocities, its performance decreases with lower speeds. This leads to deceleration durations of several decades depending on the spacecraft mass. Within the context of Project Dragonfly, initiated by the Initiative of Interstellar Studies (i4is), this paper proposes a novel concept for decelerating a spacecraft on an interstellar mission by combining a magnetic sail with an electric sail. Combining the sails compensates for each technologys shortcomings: A magnetic sail is more effective at higher velocities than the electric sail and vice versa. It is demonstrated that using both sails sequentially outperforms using only the magnetic or electric sail for various mission scenarios and velocity ranges, at a constant total spacecraft mass. For example, for decelerating from 5% c, to interplanetary velocities, a spacecraft with both sails needs about 29 years, whereas the electric sail alone would take 35 years and the magnetic sail about 40 years with a total spacecraft mass of 8250 kg. Furthermore, it is assessed how the combined deceleration system affects the optimal overall mission architecture for different spacecraft masses and cruising speeds. Future work would investigate how operating both systems in parallel instead of sequentially would affect its performance. Moreover, uncertainties in the density of interstellar matter and sail properties need to be explored. Keywords: Magnetic Sail, Electric Sail, Interstellar Mission, Mission Design, Optimization 1. Introduction mankind. However, the scientific gain of an interstellar mission would be immensely increased with an exten- The concept of manned and unmanned interstellar sive scientific payload. In order to produce valuable sci- missions has been examined in different contexts by entific results, the deceleration of the probe is required many authors within the past decades [1]. The main ob- since it enables the study of star and planetary systems stacle connected to the design of such a mission, is the in detail [5]. For a more detailed analysis of exoplan- necessity for an advanced propulsion system which is ets, involving surface operations, a deceleration down able to accelerate the spacecraft towards the target sys- to orbital speeds is necessary. tem within a reasonable time span. To overcome the vast interstellar distances, propulsion systems with high Therefore, apart from the acceleration propulsion specific impulses, like the fusion based engines in the system, a further crucial mission component which is ICARUS and Daedalus projects have been proposed [2], often overlooked, is the deceleration system of an inter- [3]. Other methods rely on propellant-less systems like stellar mission. This has to demonstrate equally effec- laser-powered light sails, as described in [4]. tive ∆v capabilities as the propulsion system. For that Accelerating a probe to high speeds and reaching reason, methods utilizing propellant are not preferred, the target system within short duration using advanced since they would induce large amounts of mass, which propulsion systems would be a big achievement for are inert during the acceleration and cruising phases of the mission. Two attractive concepts rely on utilizing magnetic ∗Corresponding author Email addresses: [email protected] (Nikolaos and electric fields in order to deflect incoming ions of Perakis ), [email protected] (Andreas M. Hein) the interstellar space and thereby decelerate effectively. Preprint submitted to Acta Atsronautica January 22, 2016 These systems called Magnetic Sail (Msail) and Elec- that can be achieved with the superconducting mate- tric Sail (Esail) were first proposed by Zubrin [6] and rial, since this dictates the minimal cross sectional area Janhunen [7] respectively. Since each one of those sys- for a specific current. According to Zubrin [6], the tems has a different design point and velocity applica- current densities of superconductors can reach up to 10 2 tion regime in which it performs optimally, the combi- jmax = 2 · 10 A=m and this is the value used in the nation of the two can induce great flexibility in the mis- analysis. For the material of the sail, the density of sion design as well as better performance. To demon- common superconductors like copper oxide (CuO) and 3 strate these points, the example of a mission to Alpha YBCO was used, with ρMsail = 6000 kg=m . Centauri is analyzed. This star system was chosen be- The shielding mass required to protect the sail was cause it is the closest one to the earth at a distance of modeled according to [3]. This mass vaporizes due to 4.35 light years and because the deceleration concept collisions with interstellar atoms and ions and the total described in this paper, was inspired by the Dragonfly mass vaporized after time T is given by Equations 2 and Competition of the i4is, which involved a light-powered 3: light sail mission to Alpha Centauri [8]. 2. Sail Properties Z T dm m = shield dt (2) shield dt Before the comparison of the different deceleration 0 methods takes place, the properties of each sail will be shortly analyzed and the assumptions used in the simu- 2 3 A m n 3 lation of their performance will be explained. dmshield ion p o βc 6 1 7 = p 6 p − 17 (3) dt ∆H 1 − β2 4 1 − β2 5 2.1. Magnetic Sail (Msail) In Equation 3, A represents the cross sectional area The Msail consists of a superconducting coil and sup- ion of the coil, as seen from the direction of the incoming port tethers which connect it to the spacecraft and trans- ions, ∆H is the vaporization enthalpy of the shielding fer the forces onto the main structure. The current material and β = v=c. Graphite was chosen as a shield- through the coil produces a magnetic field. When the ing material since it combines a low density with high spacecraft has a non-zero velocity, the stationary ions vaporization enthalpy. The shielding mass is calculated of the interstellar medium are moving towards the sail separately for each configuration, since its calculation in its own reference frame. The interaction of ions with requires knowledge of the time-dependent profile for β. the magnetosphere of the coil leads to a momentum ex- For that reason, its calculation is carried out with an it- change and a force on the sail, along the direction of the erative procedure. incoming charged particles. For the tether and support structures, a mass equal to The force on the sail is calculated according to Equa- 15 % of the sail mass was used. tion 1 [9]. It is evident from the formula in Equation 1, that the magnetic sail is efficient for higher current values and larger dimensions. In the analyses presented in this 3 0:5 2 2 2 FMsail = 0:345π mpnoµ IR v (1) work, the radius of the Msail was limited to 50 km. Al- though even larger dimensions can demonstrate better where mp is the mass of the proton, no the number performance, it was thought that the deployment of big- density of interstellar ions, µ the free space permeabil- ger radii is far from the current or near-future techno- ity, I the current through the sail, R its radius and v logical capabilities and was therefore excluded from the its speed. Values for no are proposed in [10] in the analyses. case of a space probe traveling to Alpha Centauri. In The main disadvantage of the magnetic sail is also this work, a rather conservative value was implemented, evident when taking the force formula into account. At −3 with no = 0:03 cm corresponding to the expected val- lower speeds, the force keeps getting reduced asymp- ues in the Local Bubble [10]. totically, and hence the effect of the Msail at these ve- The main structural component introducing extra locities becomes negligible. This has as consequence mass into the system is the sail itself, as well as its that reaching orbital speeds (10-100 km/s) requires long shielding and its deployment mechanism. The mass deceleration duration. A magnetic sail would there- of the sail is defined by the maximal current density fore be optimal for missions where no orbital insertion 2 or surface operations in planetary systems are required 0.5 Voltage = 250 kV 0.45 but where a deceleration for prolonged measurements in Voltage = 750 kV the target system is sufficient.
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