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4 СЕКЦІЯ
ПРИЛА ДИ, МАТЕРІАЛИ ТА ТЕХНО ЛОГІЇ ДЛЯ КОСМІЧНИХ ДОС ЛІДЖЕНЬ
88 ISSN 2309-2130 UCSR
Despite the great interest in interplanetary expeditions with a view to peaceful uses of out-
er space, such space missions involving humans is currently difficult because of the absence
of suitable space vehicle and jet engines, which would allow to realize interplanetary travel,
for example, from Earth to Mars, in a relatively short time, for example, less than one month.
There are no such high-speed space propulsion systems at the moment, but there are physi-
cal fundamentals for their creation in the nearest future.
The conceptual approach is the idea of using the pulsed laser plasma (LP) and stimulated
low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR) of transmutation of elements. For example, in experi-
ments on the pulsed laser ablation of energy materials in expanding plasma, we obtained
velocities of the front of the laser plume about 3•108 cm/s. At that, it was not an objective to
get maximum velocity of plasma expansion. However, moving in this direction, we can create
a laser driver (LD) of pulse-periodic action and a fuel material (FM) of suitable configuration in
order to bring the velocity of plasma expansion to a value V1 = 109 cm/s, i.e., reach a jet pro-
pulsion speed about 3% of the speed of light in vacuum. Then, using such LP engine based
on the LD with spraying FM of mass m1 = 200 kg in the flight on the space vehicle of mass
m2 = 20,000 kg, one can accelerate up to speed V2 = V1 (m1/m2) = 107 cm/s, or 100 km/s.
In the evaporation of 3 mg FM per pulse with the repetition rate of 1 kHz, the overall time of
spraying 200 kg FM will be about 20 hours, that is, acceleration of spacecraft will take 1 day.
The laser energy for evaporating 3 mg FM is ~ 0.1 J; the LD power is ~ 100 W; the LD efficiency
is ~ 10%; so the required power for the LP jet propulsion should be ~1 kW. Such power can be
provided by usual space solar batteries of 5 m2 area. In this case, the flight from Earth to Mars
at the distance of 56 million km will take 12 days (taking into account the acceleration and
deceleration time); and the required mass of FM does not exceed 1 ton.
In comparison, currently existing chemical rocket jet engines using liquid fuel provide a
jet thrust with a speed no more than 4-5 km/s; and electric jet engines in which jet thrust cre-
ated by electromagnetic field of accelerated ions, provide a speed of 60-70 km/s. It is esti-
mated that for the space flight from Earth to Mars with using chemical jet engines the required
spacecraft mass (with required fuel) should be 1,500 tons; while using nuclear jet engines
the spacecraft mass will be 900 tons; and using LP jet engines the spacecraft mass will be
100 tons. It is assumed that the delivery to the Earth orbit can be performed by conventional
rockets equipped with chemical jet engines, and the space flight to Mars will be realized using
advanced LP jet engines.
Thus, the development of new jet engines of the pulsed laser plasma type will not only re-
duce the time of interplanetary missions, but also reduce a relative weight of the space vehicle
to increase the payload for long space flights.
The authors are grateful to Dr. V. Belvadis from FOTONIKA-LV in Riga for stimulating discus-
sions and acknowledge support from the FP7-MCA-IRSES Project “Nocturnal Atmosphere”.
L.F. Linnik, V.V. Naumov, A.I. Stegnii
Institute of Fundamental Problems for High Technology, NASU
movsesian.iana@gmail.com
CONCEPT OF LASER PLASMA JET PROPULSION FOR INTER-
PLANETARY SPACE MISSIONS