Analysis of Small-scale Magneto Plasma Sail and Propulsive Characteristics

Abstract

(Received June 10th, 2013) Magneto Plasma Sail (MPS) is spacecraft propulsion that produces an artificial magnetosphere to block solar wind particles, and thus impart momentum to accelerate a spacecraft. In the present study, we conducted three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations on small-scale magnetospheres (< i on Larmor radius, 100 km) to investigate thrust characteristics of MPS, in which the magnetosphere is inflated by an additional plas ma injection. As a result, we revealed that the finite thrust generation and the increase in thrust are obtained on the small-scale magnetosphere even if the electron kinetics is taken into consideration. The thrust of MPS (1.0 mN) becomes up to 14 times larger than that of the original magnetic sail (0.07 mN). However, it was also revealed that the thrust gain of MPS defi ned as thrust of MPS / (thrust of magnetic sail + thrust of plasm a jet) is approximately unity and thrust-mass ratio and thrust-power ratio are further smaller compared with other existing propulsion system. An extensive improvement of a thrust is required for the realization of MPS.