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| Titel |
Increased electric sail thrust through removal of trapped shielding electrons by orbit chaotisation due to spacecraft body |
| VerfasserIn |
P. Janhunen  |
| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| ISSN |
0992-7689
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| Digitales Dokument |
URL |
| Erschienen |
In: Annales Geophysicae ; 27, no. 8 ; Nr. 27, no. 8 (2009-08-07), S.3089-3100 |
| Datensatznummer |
250016616
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 copernicus.org/angeo-27-3089-2009.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| An electric solar wind sail is a recently introduced propellantless
space propulsion method whose technical development has also
started. The electric sail consists of a set of long, thin,
centrifugally stretched and conducting tethers which are charged
positively and kept in a high positive potential of order 20 kV by an
onboard electron gun. The positively charged tethers deflect solar
wind protons, thus tapping momentum from the solar wind stream and
producing thrust. The amount of obtained propulsive thrust depends on
how many electrons are trapped by the potential structures of the
tethers, because the trapped electrons tend to shield the charged
tether and reduce its effect on the solar wind. Here we present
physical arguments and test particle calculations indicating that in a
realistic three-dimensional electric sail spacecraft there exist a
natural mechanism which tends to remove the trapped electrons by
chaotising their orbits and causing them to eventually collide with
the conducting tethers. We present calculations which indicate that if
these mechanisms were able to remove trapped electrons nearly
completely, the electric sail performance could be about five times
higher than previously estimated, about 500 nN/m, corresponding to 1 N
thrust for a baseline construction with 2000 km total tether length. |
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