PROPELLANTLESS PROPULSION

 Some advanced propulsion systems do not require any

propellant at all (or at least very little in the case of
Mini-Magnetosphere propulsion), which makes them
very attractive for several applications such as satellite
de-orbiting or even interstellar missions.
 The energy required can be either supplied internally
Introduction (solar arrays, onboard nuclear power generation) or
externally (laser, microwave, sun, magnetic fields).

 All these concepts are still in the

demonstration/feasibility concept phase except such as
tethers and solar sails.
 Tethers
 Tethers are long cables connected to a spacecraft,
 It can provide orbit raising/de-orbiting maneuvers
 as well as propulsion or power generation through the
Earth's (or other planet's) magnetic field.
 Tethers are of 2 types
 momentum exchange tethers and
 electrodynamic tethers that interact with magnetic
fields.
  The concept of tether propulsion system utilizes very
strong cables, technically known as ‘tethers’ or ‘space
tethers’.
 Tethers can greatly assist in initiating and completing
launch and/or in altering the orbital characteristics of a
spacecraft or a satellite.
Tethers  These tethers have extreme tensile strength and may
be used to change the orbit of a spacecraft or satellite.
 Such manoeuvring is obtained by utilizing the
interaction with the magnetic field of a celestial body or
through exchanging momentum between objects
  If a long tether is spinning around an orbit, it can pick
up payload at a low orbit and spin it up to a higher
orbit. This is called a "bolo".
 An extreme version is the rotavator where the cable is
extended to reach the planet's surface.
Momentum  Atmospheric drag will obviously slow down and heat up
Exchange Tether such a tether significantly so that no material presently
exists for any Earth applications.
 However, such momentum exchange tethers could be
constructed for the Moon or Mars, which have a much
thinner atmosphere and therefore much less drag.
Momentum Exchange Tether

 In a Momentum-Exchange Tether Propulsion System, a long, thin, high-

strength cable is positioned in geosynchronous orbit and is allowed to
rotate around a central body .
 In Momentum-Exchange Tether Propulsion System, the tether is used to
connect two objects in space so that one transfers momentum and
energy to the other.
 The distance separating these two objects would lead to the difference
in the gravitational force acting at the two locations which will cause
both of the objects to be pulled apart.
 This phenomenon is termed as ‘Gravity Gradient Force’.
 The tether can be allowed to move at a controlled rate, pulled due to the
tension resulted by the Gravity Gradient Force .
 Once the tether is positioned and in the absence of any unbalanced
forces acting on the tether, it will attain an equilibrium having vertically
aligned orientation
 This system can also be utilized to deaccelerate incoming spacecraft or
satellite, which in turn would upsurge the tether facility’s momentum
and energy.
  The most commonly known concept is the electrodynamic
tether.
 Here, a long cable consisting of a conductive core and an
insulator coating interacts with a planet's magnetic field
(e.g., from the Earth) to generate power or provide
propulsion.
 One end of the tether needs to be mounted on the
Electrodynamic spacecraft structure.

Tether  Depending on the operation mode, an electron emitter

(plasma contactors, field emission array cathodes, etc.
similar to electric propulsion neutralizers needs to be
mounted at the other end of the tether or on the spacecraft
 This is required in order to emit a current into the ambient
space plasma interacting with the planet's magnetic field if
the spacecraft is moving perpendicular to it.
The maximum force can be expressed by

where B is the magnetic field (for the Earth in LEO B = 20

μT), ‘l’ the length of the tether, R its resistance and υ the
spacecraft's velocity.

For a length of 5 km, the resistance of an aluminium tether is

about 185 Ohm. For a typical LEO velocity of 6,800mls, the
tether will therefore produce a maximum force of 0.36N.
  Several flight demonstration tests of a tether system
demonstrated the principal capabilities of an
electrodynamic tether.
 Obviously the most difficult part is the deployment of a
several kilometer-long tether cable.

Limitations &  The longest tether ever successfully deployed had a

length of 20 km.
Advantages  High voltage drops along the cable and arcing are
another problem.
 However, due to the principal simplicity of the concept
and the advantage of no propellant being required
promise a bright future for tether propulsion.
  A very popular propellantless propulsion concept is the solar sail.
 Here, the pressure from the solar photons are collected using a very
large sail producing thrust.
 The solar pressure at the Earth's orbit is around 9 N/km2 decreasing
with the l/r2 from the sun.
 Therefore, especially for interplanetary missions, very large sail
structures are required for useful thrusts.
 The total force exerted on an 800 by 800 metre solar sail, for example, is
about 5 newtons at Earth's distance from the Sun,making it a low-

Solar Sails thrust propulsion system, similar to spacecraft propelled by electric

engines,
 but as it uses no propellant, that force is exerted almost constantly and
the collective effect over time is great enough to be considered a
potential manner of propelling spacecraft.
 In addition to a main sail, small steering sails (typically 5% in size of the
main sail) are attached at the ends of a square solar sail for attitude
control purposes.
also called light sails or photon sails  Obviously, the main critical points are the deployment mechanism and
the mass of the sail structure.
 Solar sailing is a concept with a long history,
dating all the way back to an idea Johannes
Kepler shared with his friend Galileo Galilei in
1608.
 solar sails have been successfully built and
launched by the Japanese Aerospace
Exploration Agency (JAXA) with
their IKAROS spacecraft that first demonstrated
controlled solar sailing, by NASA with
their NanoSail-D spacecraft, and by The
Planetary Society with LightSail1 spacecraft.
 Sail materials presently under study have a thickness of
only l μm which is the limit for the material to be able to
survive the deployment and launch period.
 This then gives a thrust-to-weight ratio of about 10- 5
N/kg.

 Space-manufactured solar sails may not require

deployment mechanisms and do not have to withstand
launch vibrations, which might improve this ratio with
even thinner materials.
 Solar sails can increase and decrease orbital speed and
therefore can be used to go either close to the sun or to
the outer solar system.
 Also maneuverability is good, comparable to a
windsurfer who can maneuver around the sea as well
with only one wind direction.
 The basic concept can be improved by separating the
function of collecting photons and reflecting the
photons to create thrust.
 We would then have one sail always facing the sun so
that the collecting area is always maximized.
 This sail is slightly curved so that the reflected photons
are concentrated and therefore can be collected by a
smaller second sail, which reflects them in the desired
direction.
  Spacecraft gain most of their momentum when they are launched
from Earth, and then most increase their speed or change course
using chemical rockets that burn fuel that the spacecraft carries on
board. But more rocket fuel means more weight, which limits how
much can be carried. Most spacecraft reach their maximum speed
and then coast through space or rely on gravity assists from other
planets to reach their destinations.
 With solar sails, a spacecraft can continue accelerating as long as
What is the there is light pushing on it. Within a solar system, sunlight can

advantage of solar continuously push on the sail, accelerating the spacecraft

throughout its entire voyage. This means that solar sail-propelled
sailing? spacecraft can reach speeds that would be practically impossible
for chemical rockets to achieve.
 Solar sailing spacecraft are also advantageous because they can
be placed in orbits that would otherwise be unstable by using the
sail acceleration as a balancing force. As an example, this could
enable solar monitoring missions to sit between the Earth and Sun
at a closer distance than otherwise possible to provide more
warning of solar storms.
  Current solar sails are made of lightweight materials
such as Mylar or polyimide coated with a metallic
reflective coating. LightSail 2 uses 4 triangular Mylar
What is a solar sails that are just 4.5 microns (1/5000th of an inch) thick.
sail made of?  They unfold using 4 cobalt alloy booms that unwind like
tape measures. The sails have a combined area of 32
square meters (344 square feet), about the size of a
boxing ring.
  Changing orbits
 Swing-by maneuvers
 Trajectory corrections
 Interstellar flight
Operations
 Satellites Deorbiting
  The solar wind travels at speeds ranging from 300-800
krnls, which is very high compared to the fastest man-
made spacecraft Voyager, with a present speed of about
17 km/s.
 Since the solar wind consists of charged particles, a
magnetic dipole can deflect the solar wind and
Magnetic Sails therefore create thrust.

 The main drawback is that it has a very low density,

which requires either very high field strengths or very
large magnetic fields to create useful thrust for
standard-size spacecraft.
  Magnetic sail
two different
 Mini-magnetosphere (M2P2)
concepts
  A superconductor ring with a diameter of several
kilometers and the spacecraft in the middle has been
suggested to create a large high field strength magnetic
Magnetic sail dipole.
 Obviously, the major technical difficulties are the
cooling of this superconductor, the large structure and
the weight.
  A very elegant way was recently proposed whereby a large-scale
magnetic field would be produced by a magnetic dipole on board
the spacecraft and a plasma (e.g., Argon etc.) produced by a
Helicon device (radiofrequency plasma generator using a coil,)
would be injected.
 Since the plasma increases the magnetic permeability, the
magnetic field expands with the plasma to a few kilometers in
diameter.

Mini-  Presently, modeling and experimental efforts are underway to

estimate theexpansion of the magnetic field.
magnetosphere  About 20 kilometers seem to be possible, which would be large
enough to produce significant thrusts for interplanetary
(M2P2) exploration missions.
 Since some gas is used to produce the magnetic field, it is not
primarily used as a propellant - and thus M2P2 is listed under
propellantless propulsion.
 In principle, the plasma is contained in the magnetic bubble, and
only leakage needs to be replaced.
 So "propellant" consumption will be very small.
BEAM-POWERED PROPULSION
 BEAM-POWERED PROPULSION

• A classification of directional propulsion where energy is

directed to an aircraft/spacecraft from a remote
powerplant to provide energy for propulsion.
• The directed beam is either a microwave or a laser beam
which is further classified into continuous and pulsed beam.
• The power is fixed to be a remote source and is transmitted,
hence reducing the weight of the aircraft/spacecraft
 CLASSIFICATION

Ablative
thrusters
Pulsed Beam
Pulse Detonation
Laser Beam Engines

Thermal Rockets

Continuous Photonic
Beam thrusters

Light Sails
 CLASSIFICATION

LASER PROPULSION
• It can heat the propellants to very high temperatures, and
as the exhaust velocity is directly proportional to the square
root of the temperature, the efficiency of the rocket is
increased
• No theoretical limitation for the amount of energy
transmission
 CLASSIFICATION

ABLATIVE THRUSTERS
• External pulsed laser
• Burns off solid metal propellant as a plasma plume, producing thrust
• Very high specific impulse, about 5000s
• Material is removed from a solid or liquid surface at high velocities using a
pulsed laser by laser ablation
• The material can be heated or evaporated based on the laser flux and pulse
duration
• VARIATIONS: Double pulse propulsion – One laser pulse ablates the material
and a second laser pulse further heats the ablated gas – results in a plume.
 CLASSIFICATION

PULSED PLASMA DETONATION

• High energy pulse focused into a gas or on a solid surface filled with gas,
breaks down the gas
• Results in an expansion shockwave which absorbs laser energy at the shock
front – Laser Sustained Detonation wave
• This expansion of hot plasma behind the shock during and after the pulse
transmits momentum to the vehicle.
 CLASSIFICATION

LASER THERMAL ROCKETS

• Propellant is heated by the energy from an external laser beam
• The solid heat exchanger is heated by the beam which in turn heats an inert
liquid propellant, converting it into hot gas, exhausted through a
conventional nozzle
• Advantage of working with any laser wavelength
• Efficiency approaches a near 100%
• Specific impulse maximised with minimum molecular
weight reaction mass, as high as 600 – 800 s with hydrogen
as the propellant
 CLASSIFICATION

PHOTONIC THRUSTERS
• Uses thrust from the momentum of emitted photons for the propulsion
• The speed an ideal photon rocket will reach, in the absence of external
forces, depends on the ratio of its initial and final mass
• An ideal rocket having such a propulsion is where all the fuel is converted to
photons, radiated in the same direction
• Realistically, the beam of photons can be taken to be not perfectly collimated
 CLASSIFICATION

LIGHT SAILS
• Also known as Solar sails or Photon sails, uses radiation pressure exerted
by sunlight on large mirrors
• First spacecraft which used this type of propulsion was IKAROS, in 2010.
• The momentum of the photons imparts force on to the
solar sail.
• This helps in giving the spacecraft to move forward in the
direction of the impacted photons.