Charged aerodynamics: Ionospheric plasma drag on objects in low-Earth orbit

Lafleur, Trevor

doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2023.08.018

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…In the United States, the most prominent E-sail development has been the twophase NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) "Heliopause Electrostatic Rapid Transit System", or HERTS project, which prepared a particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation and analysed the potential E-sail missions, scenarios and spacecraft designs [15,16]. In Australia, the ionospheric plasma drag on objects in LEO has been analysed with PIC simulations and experiments [17]. A Finnish startup company named Aurora Propulsion Technologies is implementing a European Innovation Council (EIC) grant for developing the plasma brake [18], as well as a European Space Agency (ESA) project, DragLiner, to develop a Coulomb drag-based telecommunication satellite deorbiting device, in collaboration with the Finnish Meteorological Institute [19].…”

Section: Introduction 1electric Solar Wind Sail and Plasma Brake In T...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Electric Sail Test Cube–Lunar Nanospacecraft, ESTCube-LuNa: Solar Wind Propulsion Demonstration Mission Concept

Slavinskis,

Palos,

Dalbins

et al. 2024

Aerospace

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The electric solar wind sail, or E-sail, is a propellantless interplanetary propulsion system concept. By deflecting solar wind particles off their original course, it can generate a propulsive effect with nothing more than an electric charge. The high-voltage charge is applied to one or multiple centrifugally deployed hair-thin tethers, around which an electrostatic sheath is created. Electron emitters are required to compensate for the electron current gathered by the tether. The electric sail can also be utilised in low Earth orbit, or LEO, when passing through the ionosphere, where it serves as a plasma brake for deorbiting—several missions have been dedicated to LEO demonstration. In this article, we propose the ESTCube-LuNa mission concept and the preliminary cubesat design to be launched into the Moon’s orbit, where the solar wind is uninterrupted, except for the lunar wake and when the Moon is in the Earth’s magnetosphere. This article introduces E-sail demonstration experiments and the preliminary payload design, along with E-sail thrust validation and environment characterisation methods, a cis-lunar cubesat platform solution and an early concept of operations. The proposed lunar nanospacecraft concept is designed without a deep space network, typically used for lunar and deep space operations. Instead, radio telescopes are being repurposed for communications and radio frequency ranging, and celestial optical navigation is developed for on-board orbit determination.

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Section: Introduction 1electric Solar Wind Sail and Plasma Brake In T...mentioning

confidence: 99%