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| Titel |
Simulation study of the plasma-brake effect |
| 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 ; 32, no. 10 ; Nr. 32, no. 10 (2014-10-07), S.1207-1216 |
| Datensatznummer |
250121115
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 copernicus.org/angeo-32-1207-2014.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Plasma brake is a thin, negatively biased tether that has been proposed
as an efficient concept for deorbiting satellites and debris objects from low
Earth orbit. We simulate the interaction with the ionospheric plasma ram flow
with the plasma-brake tether by a high-performance electrostatic particle in
cell code to evaluate the thrust. The tether is assumed to be perpendicular
to the flow. We perform runs for different tether voltage, magnetic-field
orientation and plasma-ion mass. We show that a simple analytical thrust
formula reproduces most of the simulation results well. The interaction with
the tether and the plasma flow is laminar (i.e. smooth and not turbulent)
when the magnetic field is perpendicular to the tether and the flow. If the
magnetic field is parallel to the tether, the behaviour is unstable and
thrust is reduced by a modest factor. The case in which the magnetic field is
aligned with the flow can also be unstable, but does not result in notable
thrust reduction. We also correct an error in an earlier reference. According to
the simulations, the predicted thrust of the plasma brake is large enough to
make the method promising for low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite deorbiting.
As a numerical example, we estimate that a 5 km long plasma-brake tether
weighing 0.055 kg could produce 0.43 mN breaking force, which is enough to
reduce the orbital altitude of a 260 kg object mass by 100 km over 1 year. |
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