Nasa publishes details of radical 'proton power' system that could send a spacecraft to the edge of the solar system in just 10 years. The light metal aluminium has a significant role to play in it.
According to the NASA engineers the radically new propulsion system could cut down the time it takes for a spacecraft to reach interstellar space. The propeller would interact with particles released by the sun, repelling protons to create thrust and achieve unprecedented speeds.
They hope to test this new system or spacecraft by 2020.
'We could get to Pluto in five or six years, half the time of the recent Dawn mission, and Jupiter in two years,' said Bruce Wiegmann, an engineer in Marshall's Advanced Concepts Office and the principal investigator for the E-Sail to BBC.
The proposed spacecraft is called the Heliopause Electrostatic Rapid Transit System (Herts) E-Sail, and functions without any built-in propellant. The E-Sail would be boosted by solar wind to reach the heliopause – the edge of our solar system.
'You have long thin bare wires that are positively charged extending from a slowly rotating spacecraft,' he added. 'The sun releases protons and electrons into the solar wind at very high speeds – 400 to 750 kilometers per second,' said Bruce Wiegmann. 'The E-Sail would use these protons to propel the spacecraft.'
Researchers at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama have begun the tests which will continue for over two years. These will determine the amount of protons deflected by the wires and the amount of electrons attracted to them.
However, experts have said the plan has a number of issues to be considered and they are trying to prove the technology and demonstrate the mission by 2020s. When Nasa's Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause into interstellar space in 2012, it was about 35 years into its journey. The new system or spacecraft is expected to achieve this in less than one-third of the time.
Responses
