|
| | | | |
| | | |
| Stat |
Members: 3669
Articles: 2'599'751
Articles rated: 2609
18 March 2025 |
|
| | | | |
|
Article overview
| |
|
|
Design of a rapid transit to Mars mission using laser-thermal propulsion | | Emmanuel Duplay
; Zhuo Fan Bao
; Sebastian Rodriguez Rosero
; Arnab Sinha
; Andrew Higgins
; | | Date: |
1 Jan 2022 | | Abstract: | The application of directed energy to spacecraft mission design is explored
using rapid transit to Mars as the design objective. An Earth-based laser array
of unprecedented size (10~m diameter) and power (100~MW) is assumed to be
enabled by ongoing developments in photonic laser technology. A phased-array
laser of this size and incorporating atmospheric compensation would be able to
deliver laser power to spacecraft in cislunar space, where the incident laser
is focused into a hydrogen heating chamber via an inflatable reflector. The
hydrogen propellant is then exhausted through a nozzle to realize specific
impulses of 3000 s. The architecture is shown to be immediately reusable via a
burn-back maneuver to return the propulsion unit while still within range of
the Earth-based laser. The ability to tolerate much greater laser fluxes
enables realizing the combination of high thrust and high specific impulse,
making this approach favorable in comparison to laser-electric propulsion and
occupying a parameter space similar to gas-core nuclear thermal rockets
(without the requisite reactor). The heating chamber and its associated
regenerative cooling and propellant handling systems are crucial elements of
the design that receive special attention in this study. The astrodynamics and
the extreme aerocapture maneuver required at Mars arrival after a 45-day
transit are also analyzed in detail. The application of laser-thermal
propulsion as an enabling technology for other rapid transit missions in the
solar system and beyond is discussed. | | Source: | arXiv, 2201.00244 | | Services: | Forum | Review | PDF | Favorites | |
|
|
No review found.
Did you like this article?
Note: answers to reviews or questions about the article must be posted in the forum section.
Authors are not allowed to review their own article. They can use the forum section.
|
| |
|
|
|
REGISTER