2014 Volume 9 Pages 2405008
Magneto Plasma Sail (MPS) is one of the next generation space propulsion systems which generates a propulsive force using the interaction between the solar wind plasma and an artificial inflated magnetosphere generated by a superconductive coil. In the MPS system, the magnetosphere as a sail must be inflated by the plasma injection from the spacecraft in order to obtain the thrust gain. In the present study, the magnetic inflation concept is numerically tested by so-called ion one-component plasma model. As a simulation result, the magnetic moment of the system is drastically increased up to 45 times that of the coil current at plasma-β = 20 and rLi/L (radius of gyro motion / characteristics length of the magnetic field) = 0.01, and this is the first successful magnetosphere inflation obtained by numerical simulation. Corresponding maximum thrust gain is also estimated to be about 45.
