Dr. Fatima Ebrahimi, a physicist with the US Department of Energy, has invented a new kind of rocket propulsion device that could power deep space exploration.
Dr. Ebrahimi works at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and came up with a design that uses a magnetic field to launch plasma particles into space.
By using a magnetic field, pilots could adjust the amount of thrust according to the spacecraft’s mission and destination.
Current plasma (electrically charged gas particles) propulsion devices use electric fields to propel them. But exploiting a magnetic reconnection would result in much greater acceleration. The thruster of Dr. Ebrahimi could theoretically travel 10 times faster than comparable devices.
The idea is one that already exists in space. When magnetic fields on the surface of the sun separate and reconnect, they produce a tremendous amount of energy. A similar eruption is created in special machines called tokamaks, which are a prime candidate for the design of a possible nuclear fusion reactor.
“I’ve been cooking this concept for a while,” she wrote in a paper on the invention for the Journal of Plasma Physics.
‘I came up with the idea in 2017 while sitting on a deck thinking about the similarities between a car’s exhaust and the high-speed exhaust particles created by PPPL’s National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX),’ she wrote.
“During its operation, this tokamak produces magnetic bubbles called plasmoids, which move at a speed of about 20 kilometers per second, which was a lot like thrust to me.”
If the idea can become a reality, this new type of rocket propeller could get us to Mars much faster. In computer simulations, it generates exhaust gases at speeds of hundreds of kilometers per second.
Considering Newton’s second law of motion (resulting force = mass × acceleration), this bodes well for very fast travel in space.
“Long-distance travel takes months or years because the specific momentum from chemical rocket engines is very low, so it takes time for the craft to get up to speed,” wrote Dr. Ebrahimi.
“But if we make thrusters based on magnetic reconnection, we may be able to complete long-range missions in a shorter time.”
The scientists explained that the concept stems directly from the work on fusion energy.
“This work is inspired by past fusion work and this is the first time that plasmoids and reconnection have been proposed for space propulsion,” wrote Dr. Ebrahimi.
‘The next step is to build a prototype!’
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