The generation of either electrical power or propulsive thrust with an electrodynamic tether system necessarily depends on driving a return current through the system's ambient space plasma environment. An electrical connection is, therefore, required between the plasma and each end of the tether. The voltage required to drive current through the system is derived either from the orbital motion of the conducting tether through the magnetic field of the Earth, or from a high-voltage power supply...
Topics: NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS), ELECTRODES, TETHERLINES, SPACECRAFT PROPULSION, INFLATABLE...
The objectives are to provide a parametric description of the electrostatic interaction of a mesosonic, collisionless plasma with conducting bodies on the order of 1 to 10 Debye lengths in size, and to extend this description to the satellite-ionospheric interaction, where possible. Experimental findings include: the wake of the geometrically complex body appears to be a linear superposition of the wakes of its simple geometric components; and vector ion flux measurements show converging ion...
Topics: NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS), AERODYNAMICS, COLLISIONLESS PLASMAS, MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMIC...
Attempts to gain an understanding of spacecraft plasma dynamics via experimental investigation of the interaction between artificially synthesized, collisionless, flowing plasmas and laboratory test bodies date back to the early 1960's. In the past 25 years, a number of researchers have succeeded in simulating certain limited aspects of the complex spacecraft-space plasma interaction reasonably well. Theoretical treatments have also provided limited models of the phenomena. Several active...
Topics: NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS), HYPERSONIC VEHICLES, IONOSPHERIC ION DENSITY,...
Data from a sounding rocket flight of the swept angle retarding ion mass spectrometer (SARIMS) are presented to demonstrate the capability of the instrument to make measurements of thermal ions which are differential in angle, energy, and mass. The SARIMS was flown on the Michigan auroral probe over regions characterized first by discrete auroral arcs and later by diffuse precipitation. The instrument measured the temperature, densities, and flow velocities of the ions NO(+) and O(+). Measured...
Topics: NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS), AURORAS, ION DENSITY (CONCENTRATION), MASS SPECTROMETERS,...
