{"id":618127,"date":"2023-03-15T09:49:03","date_gmt":"2023-03-15T14:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/15\/how-a-beam-of-pellets-could-blast-a-probe-into-deep-space\/"},"modified":"2023-03-15T09:49:03","modified_gmt":"2023-03-15T14:49:03","slug":"how-a-beam-of-pellets-could-blast-a-probe-into-deep-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/15\/how-a-beam-of-pellets-could-blast-a-probe-into-deep-space\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Beam of Pellets Could Blast a Probe Into Deep Space"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If you want<\/span> a spacecraft that can explore beyond the solar system\u2014and you don\u2019t want to wait decades for it to get there\u2014you need one that can really\u00a0move<\/em>. Today\u2019s chemical rockets and solar-powered probes are downright poky on interstellar scales. Artur Davoyan has a completely different idea for how to accelerate a spacecraft to extreme speeds: pellet-beam propulsion.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the gist of how it would work: First, you actually need\u00a0two<\/em> spacecraft. A probe blasts off on a one-way trip to deep space, while a second vehicle remains locked in an Earth orbit and fires thousands of tiny metallic pellets at its partner every second. The orbiting craft also either fires a 10-megawatt laser beam at the retreating probe, or aligns a laser fired from the ground at it. The laser hits the pellets, heats them, and ablates them, so that part of their material melts and becomes plasma\u2014a hot cloud of ionized particles. That plasma accelerates the pellet remnants, and this pellet beam provides thrust to the spacecraft.<\/p>\n

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Courtesy of Pavel Shafirin; NASA<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Alternatively, Davoyan thinks the probe could get thrust from the pellet beam if the craft were to deploy an on-board magnetic field-generating device to deflect the pellets. In this case, that magnetic action would push the craft forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Such a system could boost a 1-ton probe to speeds up to 300,000 miles per hour. That\u2019s slow compared to the speed of light, but more than 10 times faster than conventional propulsion systems.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a theoretical concept, but realistic enough that\u00a0NASA\u2019s Innovative Advanced Concepts program<\/a> has given Davoyan\u2019s group $175,000 to show that the technology is feasible. \u201cThere\u2019s rich physics in there,\u201d says Davoyan, a mechanical and aerospace engineer at UCLA. To create propulsion, he continues, \u201cyou either throw the fuel out of the rocket or you throw the fuel\u00a0at<\/em> the rocket.\u201d From a physics perspective, they work the same: Both impart momentum to a moving object.<\/p>\n

His team\u2019s project could transform long-distance space exploration, dramatically expanding the astronomical neighborhood accessible to us. After all, we\u2019ve only sent a few robotic visitors to scope out\u00a0Uranus<\/a>,\u00a0Neptune<\/a>,\u00a0Pluto<\/a>, and their moons. We know even less about\u00a0objects<\/a>\u00a0lurking<\/a> farther away. The even smaller handful of NASA craft en route to interstellar space include\u00a0Pioneer 10 and 11<\/a>, which blasted off in the early 1970s; Voyager 1 and 2, which were launched in 1977 and\u00a0continue their mission to this day<\/a>; and the more recent New Horizons, which took nine years to\u00a0fly by Pluto in 2015<\/a>, glimpsing the\u00a0dwarf planet\u2019s<\/a> now famous heart-shaped plain. Over its 46-year journey, Voyager 1 has ventured farthest from home, but a pellet-beam-powered craft could overtake it in just five years, Davoyan says.<\/p>\n

He takes inspiration from Breakthrough Starshot, a $100 million initiative announced in 2016 by Russian-born philanthropist\u00a0Yuri Milner<\/a> and British cosmologist\u00a0Stephen Hawking<\/a> to use a 100-gigawatt laser beam to\u00a0blast a miniature probe toward Alpha Centauri<\/a>. (The star nearest our solar system, it resides \u201conly\u201d 4 light-years away.) The Starshot team is exploring how they could hurl a 1-gram craft attached to a lightsail into interstellar space, using the laser to accelerate it to 20 percent of the speed of light, which is ludicrously fast and would reduce travel time from millennia to decades.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m increasingly optimistic that later this century, humanity\u2019s going to be including nearby stars in our reach,\u201d says Pete Worden, Breakthrough Starshot\u2019s executive director.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That said, he expects that the futuristic project could take more than a half-century to realize. It poses a few ambitious physics and engineering challenges, including the development of such a massive laser, the construction of a lightsail that can handle that much power without disintegrating, and the design of the minuscule spacecraft and an instrument for communicating back to Earth. There\u2019s an economic challenge as well, Worden points out: determining whether all the pieces can be put together for an \u201caffordable amount of money.\u201d Though the initial funding is for $100 million, they are aiming for a total price tag of around $10 billion, akin to what it cost to build the\u00a0James Webb Space Telescope<\/a>, or a few billion more than the\u00a0Large Hadron Collider<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019re cautiously optimistic,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

So Davoyan decided to explore an intermediate option. His project would involve a smaller laser (one a few meters across) and a shorter acceleration distance. If they\u2019re successful, he thinks his team\u2019s concept could be powering deep-space probes in less than 20 years.<\/p>\n

Worden feels that such ideas are worth trying out. \u201cI think the UCLA concept and others I\u2019m aware of have really been ignited by the fact that we have started to push the idea that human horizons should include the nearby star systems,\u201d says Worden, who previously served as director of NASA Ames Research Center. He cites research at the\u00a0Limitless Space Institute<\/a> in Houston and the Bay Area startup\u00a0Helicity Space<\/a> as additional examples.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Researchers have been envisioning other kinds of\u00a0advanced deep-space propulsion systems<\/a> too. These include\u00a0nuclear electric<\/a> propulsion and a\u00a0nuclear thermal<\/a> rocket engine. Nuclear electric propulsion would involve a lightweight fission reactor and an efficient thermoelectric generator to convert to electrical power, while the nuclear thermal rocket concept involves pumping hydrogen into a reactor, creating the heat energy to give a vehicle thrust.<\/p>\n

The benefits of any kind of nuclear system are that they can continue to function fairly efficiently far from the sun\u2014where solar-powered craft would gather less energy\u2014and attain much higher speeds than today\u2019s\u00a0NASA<\/a> and\u00a0SpaceX<\/a> chemical rockets. \u201cWe\u2019ve gotten to the point where chemical systems have topped out their performance and efficiency,\u201d says Anthony Calomino,\u00a0management lead for NASA\u2019s space nuclear technology. \u201cNuclear propulsion offers the next era of capabilities for deep-space travel.\u201d<\/p>\n

This technology also has applications a little closer to home. For example, a trip to\u00a0Mars<\/a> currently takes about nine months. By dramatically shortening the flight time, this kind of craft would make space travel safer by limiting crewmembers\u2019 exposure to\u00a0cancer-causing space radiation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Calomino is leading NASA\u2019s involvement in a nuclear thermal program called Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations, or Draco, a collaboration announced in January between the space agency and Darpa,\u00a0the Pentagon\u2019s advanced research arm. A nuclear thermal reactor wouldn\u2019t be so different from one on the ground or in a nuclear submarine, but it would need to operate at hotter temperatures, like 2,500 degrees C. A nuclear thermal rocket can achieve high thrust efficiently, which means less fuel must be carried on board, which translates into lower costs or more room for science instruments. \u201cThat opens up the mass available for payload\u2014therefore enabling NTR systems to carry larger-sized cargo into space or the same-sized cargo farther into space on a reasonable timescale,\u201d\u00a0Tabitha Dodson, Darpa\u2019s Draco program manager, wrote by email. The team plans to demo the concept later this decade.<\/p>\n

Davoyan and his colleagues have most of this year to demonstrate to NASA and other potential partners that their propulsion system could be viable. They\u2019re currently experimenting with different pellet materials and learning how they can be pushed with laser beams. They\u2019re investigating how to design a spacecraft so that the pellet beam transfers momentum to it as efficiently as possible, and to make sure that it pushes\u2014but doesn\u2019t heat up\u2014the spacecraft. Finally, they\u2019re studying possible trajectories to Uranus, Neptune, or other solar system targets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If they get a thumbs-up from the agency, they\u2019ll receive $600,000 and another two years to research their concept. That won\u2019t be enough for a large-scale demonstration, Davoyan points out\u2014actually testing a prototype in space will cost tens of millions and would come afterward. R&D takes time. The race to go ultra-fast begins by going slow.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Ramin Skibba<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you want a spacecraft that can explore beyond the solar system\u2014and you don\u2019t want to wait decades for it to get there\u2014you need one that can really\u00a0move. Today\u2019s chemical rockets and solar-powered probes are downright poky on interstellar scales. Artur Davoyan has a completely different idea for how to accelerate a spacecraft to extreme<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":618128,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1812,94206,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-618127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-could","category-pellets","category-technology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}