2023 Volume 71 Issue 2 Pages 67-77
Magsail is a space propulsion system using the interactions between the solar wind and the magnetic field generated by the onboard coils. Magnetoplasma sail is a propulsion system that increases thrust by expanding the magnetosphere through plasma injection from the spacecraft. There are two mechanisms on the magnetospheric inflation: method using frozen-in of magnetic field to carry magnetic field lines by high dynamic pressure plasma and method using the diamagnetic current by thermal plasma, which is called the ring current. We investigated the effect of the dynamic pressure and thermal pressure on the MPS thrust performance used electromagnetic hydrodynamic simulation. It was shown that the ring current is enhanced by adding dynamic pressure to the thermal plasma and increases thrust gain. The high thrust gain over 2.25 was obtained at βth = 0.5 - 2 and βk = 4 - 8. However, the thrust is reduced because the super magneto acoustic wave region is generated in the magnetosphere, which prevents the propagation of thrust in large β conditions. The wide parameter survey reveals injection plasma parameter regions where thrust reduction is restrained and high thrust gain is obtained.
