Electric solar wind sail mass budget model

Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems

A. A.Quarta¹  P.Janhunen¹  G.Mengali¹ 

DOI  :  10.5194/gi-2-85-2013

学科分类：天文学(综合)

来源: Copernicus Publications

【 摘 要 】

The electric solar wind sail (E-sail) is a new type of propellantlesspropulsion system for Solar System transportation, which uses the naturalsolar wind to produce spacecraft propulsion. The E-sail consistsof thin centrifugally stretched tethers that are kept charged by an onboardelectron gun and, as such, experience Coulomb drag through the high-speedsolar wind plasma stream. This paper discusses a mass breakdown and aperformance model for an E-sail spacecraft that hosts amission-specific payload of prescribed mass. In particular, themodel is able to estimate the total spacecraft mass and its propulsiveacceleration as a function of various design parameters such as thenumber of tethers and their length. A number of subsystem masses arecalculated assuming existing or near-term E-sail technology. In light of theobtained performance estimates, an E-sail represents a promising propulsionsystem for a variety of transportation needs in the Solar System.

【 授权许可】

Unknown