Plasma Density Analysis of CubeSat Wakes in the Earth’s Ionosphere

Albarran, R. M.; Barjatya, Aroh

doi:10.2514/1.a33402

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…ϕ 0 III is set to 0 V since, for a typical small-satellite mission, the plasma plume and the ambient plasma are not expected to charge the spacecraft surfaces excessively (i.e. in the order of few Volts) [30,90]. The initial values ϕ 0 I and ϕ 0 II are set according to a theoretical value calculated by assuming current-free conditions, no magnetic field, and that the electron energy is conserved [86].…”

Section: Control Loopmentioning

confidence: 99%

Magnetic nozzle performance in a cluster of helicon plasma thrusters

Di Fede,

Manente,

João Comunian

et al. 2023

Plasma Sources Sci. Technol.

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A numerical study of the plasma dynamics in a Helicon Plasma Thrusters' (HPT) cluster is presented. For the first time in the literature, the three-dimensional (3D) plasma dynamics occurring in the plume of a HPTs' cluster is analyzed. The physical investigation relies on ProPic, a 3D Particle-In-Cell (PIC) code specifically designed to simulate the plasma dynamics in magnetic nozzles and in a non-axi-symmetric domain. The code has been validated against experiments reported in the literature and cross-validated with Starfish, an open-source two-dimensional PIC software. The physical investigation has revealed an interesting mutual influence between the thrusters that constitute the cluster. Three significant phenomena that affect the cluster's performance have been identified. The first phenomenon is related to the effect that clustering has on the shape of the magnetic field lines and, in turn, on the divergence angle of the plume. The second phenomenon is related to electron currents flowing among different thrusters, which affect the potential drop across the plume. The third phenomenon is related to the effect that neighboring thrusters have on the plasma potential map and, in turn, on the expansion of the ions.

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Section: Control Loopmentioning

confidence: 99%

Magnetic nozzle performance in a cluster of helicon plasma thrusters

Di Fede,

Manente,

João Comunian

et al. 2023

Plasma Sources Sci. Technol.

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“…Here we make use of the ion cutoff wavenumber until a certain threshold speed (defined as the speed when the ion and electron cutoff wavenumbers are equal), and then change to the electron cutoff wavenumber above this speed. By normalising with respect to the electron Debye length, k = kλ De , we can write the electron and ion versions of equation (20) as…”

Section: Wavenumber Cutoffmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Wakes generated by charged particles moving through a background plasma are a fundamental phenomenon relevant to many applications, including, for example, dust grains in dusty magnetized plasmas [6,7] (which have been studied with linear response theory [8], particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations [9][10][11][12], molecular dynamics simulations [13,14], and experiments [15]), probes in magnetized plasmas [16,17], space plasmas (such as the earth or moon moving through the solar wind [18]), and even spacecraft moving through the ionosphere or magnetosphere [19][20][21]. The effect of an external magnetic field on the wake from a projectile, and the resulting induced force, has been studied previously using a number of different approaches, including linear response theory [8,[22][23][24][25][26], binary collision theory [27][28][29], PIC simulations [30,31], test particle Monte Carlo simulations [32], and a Green-Kudo formalism [33].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Friction in a strongly magnetized neutral plasma

Lafleur¹

2020

Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion

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A charged projectile generates an electrostatic wake as it moves through a background plasma. This wake normally gives rise to a drag force that acts antiparallel to the velocity vector of the projectile, and is commonly referred to as the stopping power. A recent theory (Lafleur T and Baalrud S D 2019 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 61 125 004) predicted that an additional component of the friction force that is perpendicular to both the projectile velocity and the Lorentz force arises when a plasma is strongly magnetized. We extend the previous analysis of this transverse friction force, which was based on the one-component plasma model, to treat a two-component charge-neutral electron-ion plasma. The direction and magnitude of the transverse force is found to depend on the projectile speed relative to the electron and ion thermal velocities, and to change sign three times. For projectile speeds below a certain threshold, the transverse force is dominated by collisions with ions, while above this threshold, only electron collisions contribute. The average trajectory of the projectile is significantly altered by the transverse force as it slows.

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“…Capon et al [9] studied the direct and indirect charged aerodynamic mechanism of the low earth orbit objects in the ionosphere. Albarran and Barjatya [10] have made plasma density analysis of CubeSat wakes in the ionosphere, and revealed that there have density depletion in their wake. Rehman et al [11] presented a kinetic model of Langmuir probe characteristics measured in the vicinity of a conducting sphere.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The feature of the wake-plasma of a space vehicle induced by modulational instability

Wang¹,

Yang²,

Chen³

et al. 2021

Phys. Scr.

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The characteristics of modulation instability in the wake plasma of space vehicle are obtained, based on the nonlinear coupling equations of the wake plasma and space vehicle in non-steady-state and non-static limit. It is found that the modulation instability is strongly related to the disturbance angle. The growth rate of transverse modulation instability is always much greater than that of longitudinal ones. Then the characteristic scale of the localized fields and density cavitons in the wake plasma of space vehicle are mainly determined by the transverse modulation instability. The growth rate of modulation instability increasing with the ponderomotive force of pump wave field, but the characteristic scale decreasing with it. Furthermore, the growth rate of modulation instability has maximum value on the central axis of space vehicle in the wake plasma, and the value increasing with the speed of space vehicle. The present results can provide a more detailed theoretical reference for the detection of space vehicle in ionospheric and stealth aircraft in plasma environments.

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Plasma Density Analysis of CubeSat Wakes in the Earth’s Ionosphere

Cited by 11 publications

References 31 publications

Magnetic nozzle performance in a cluster of helicon plasma thrusters

Magnetic nozzle performance in a cluster of helicon plasma thrusters

Friction in a strongly magnetized neutral plasma

The feature of the wake-plasma of a space vehicle induced by modulational instability

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