Author Topic: Magnetoshell Aerobraking & Aerodynamics  (Read 100746 times)

Offline Elmar Moelzer

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Re: Magnetoshell Aerobraking & Aerodynamics
« Reply #80 on: 05/15/2016 01:38 am »
Its probably possible to capture some of the energy via MHD generators, essentially if you imagine a cylindrical magnet/spacecraft any charge-exchanged particles that pass through the middle magnets can be converted. The intercepted particles outside of the magnet are just captured (drag only). When we did a back of the envelope it was much easier to just use off-the-shelf batteries rather than cryogenic superconductors. Now, if someone works up an efficient, non-superconductor MHD generator . . . .
Makes sense, Dave. Thanks for the reply! With the power levels needed, batteries should be simple enough. If this works as well as hoped, this could be quite a game changer.

Offline Impaler

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Re: Magnetoshell Aerobraking & Aerodynamics
« Reply #81 on: 05/15/2016 05:47 am »
Mr Kirtley, two questions

First is their any possible arrangement of the magneto-shell relative to the incoming air-stream that has the potential to generate lift in addition to drag?  My understanding of the interaction between the two is that the shell can only produce drag because incoming air is not deflected laterally by the shell but rather absorbed so any arrangement in which the center of mass and drag are linked by tether the tether will be brought in-line with the flow and no lift will be generated.  Lift would be of great value in moderating the g-forces involved in a capture so I'm hopeful such a thing is possible, have you done any theorizing or testing in this direction?

Second have their been any estimates of how a magneto-shell would impact the possible trajectories of Solar-Electric Propulsion vehicles shuttling between Earth and Mars.  If such a vehicle could brake at destination planets rapidly and without damaging it's solar-wings (I'm thinking they could be angled edge-on to the flow and held by guy-wires) then it should allow for huge savings in both time and propellant due to a more hohmann like trajectory as well as avoiding down-spiraling to low orbits.  Optimal ISP would be lowered and this would cascade into lower electrical demands, higher thrust and faster transit times, possibly into a range competitive with chemical propulsion.  If not perhaps try to bounce it off some of the SEP developers and see what they want to model it.
« Last Edit: 05/15/2016 08:29 am by Impaler »

Offline MP99

Re: Magnetoshell Aerobraking & Aerodynamics
« Reply #82 on: 05/15/2016 06:14 am »
The other option that seems to make sense to me is some sort of combustion or fuel cell APU if you have chemical propellants on-board.
Mercedes Diesel engine? :)

I was thinking more along the lines of the GOX/GH2 piston engine APU that ULA is doing for IVF.

~Jon
If you're carrying that much cryogenic liquid, couldn't you just use it to chill down superconductors instead just before entry interface?

Cheers, Martin

Offline dkirtley

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Re: Magnetoshell Aerobraking & Aerodynamics
« Reply #83 on: 05/15/2016 10:38 pm »
Great questions on power. When we did the initial concept study, we had a lot of challenge getting the system and missions to close, the power levels were just too high. Neptune missions are 10's of kW and HEOMD are 100's of kW and a large amount of that energy goes into heating of the Magnets. We had to do the actual orbital modeling to calculate the effective 'burn time'. As trevor suggested, even 100 kW for a few minutes can be done by modern batteries. You then have a system trade of magnet thermal and battery mass compared to 1) Hall thrusters (X3!), PPUs, and big arrays for gentle deceleration or 2) physical aeroshells for Aerocapture.
« Last Edit: 05/15/2016 10:52 pm by dkirtley »

Offline dkirtley

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Re: Magnetoshell Aerobraking & Aerodynamics
« Reply #84 on: 05/15/2016 10:51 pm »
Impaler, we just don't know the dynamic behavior of these type of systems yet. You are right that this doesn't act like a deflector/deflection shield and more like a volumetric parachute (the ion deceleration should be happening throughout the volume of the magnetoshell rather than at the surface like a normal parachute or ballute). In theory you could still steer the drag somewhat by shaping the magnetic field and impart side loads, plane changes, trajectory steering, etc. Also, because we can make these so much bigger than a physical shield (I don't know how big the ballute designs are getting, probably pretty big), you get more drag, earlier in the injection/descent so the peak dynamic pressure and deceleration forces are lower. There are still big outstanding questions about stability as well as the dynamics of the total configuration, some of which MSNW hopes to answer through modeling and the experiment in this NIAC program. I don't think anyone has put much thought into tethered or multi-body systems, yet. Any thoughts on what you could  do with 2 or more of these 'volumetric parachutes' on tethers, each with a time dependent variable size?

Offline Impaler

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Re: Magnetoshell Aerobraking & Aerodynamics
« Reply #85 on: 05/15/2016 11:44 pm »
It sounds like the volumetric parachute matches my thoughts on how the system behaves.  Under that understanding I had already tried and rejected a few configurations designed to produce lift on thought experiment basis.

First I considered two or more magnetos on tethers dragged behind the vehicle with some variation is size or shape between them such that they flank the payload rather then follow directly behind it and can exert torque on the payload (this might require a rod or repulsion effect between the two shells to keep them from colliding), but realized that this will always sum to a center of drag behind the vehicle center of mass and the two centers would always be drawn to a strait line configuration with the flow which is clearly a no lift configuration. 

I then considered the possibility of variation in time, increasing drag on one shell so that the center of drag is displaced once again from the strait line configuration.  This would cause the vehicle to once again re-orient itself and if drag was varied fast enough it's conceivable that a continuous off center drag could be produced and a continuous spinning or gyrating of the payload at the end of the tether might be produced.  A simpler means to achieve the same ends would be to just have 3? rigid arms deployed from the payload with magnetos at the ends of these which vary in power output over time, but this would put the arms under bending stress rather then the tensile stress of a tether and this would certainly be more massive as a result.  If we wanted to gain or lose angular momentum from the vehicle though this looks like it would work, though I don't see any immediate application for it.

The question is if this actually produces any lift or not and I'm inclined to believe it doesn't on conservation of momentum basis because the wake shouldn't experience any lateral deflection.  But their is one small chance of drag and that's if the shell is performing a net pick-up and drop off of gases from one portion of the wake to another even if all the gas remains in a strait line flow.  But I suspect that the mass of gas displaced in this way is so minuscule as to have only infinitesimal amounts of lift.

The only sure fire solution I could come up with is to shape the main payload mass at the end of the tether in such a way that it acts as a single forward canard, this might require some kind of large deploy-able surface like ADEPT, but designed  to be completely asymmetrical and with a relatively low need for heat resistance.  If the vehicle is intend on performing a full EDL it's likely to be designed with some lift generating shape for the lower atmosphere anyways so the question is if it can produce a worthwhile amount of lift when in the thin upper atmosphere.

Without having to actually figure out lift it should be possible to run simulations with arbitrary L:D ratios added in to see what effect they have.  Try a few broad ratios 100:1, 50:1, 20:1, 10:1 to get an idea of how much benefit it actually provides and if it's really worth pursuing aggressively.
« Last Edit: 05/16/2016 05:43 am by Impaler »

Offline jongoff

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Re: Magnetoshell Aerobraking & Aerodynamics
« Reply #86 on: 05/16/2016 02:26 am »
The other option that seems to make sense to me is some sort of combustion or fuel cell APU if you have chemical propellants on-board.
Mercedes Diesel engine? :)

I was thinking more along the lines of the GOX/GH2 piston engine APU that ULA is doing for IVF.

~Jon
If you're carrying that much cryogenic liquid, couldn't you just use it to chill down superconductors instead just before entry interface?

Cheers, Martin

You don't need much propellant to run even a 100kW APU for ~5min. But theoretically if you had propellant for that, you could have propellant for chilling a superconductor, especially if you have a LOX/LH2 stage like ACES. Lots of ways of skinning the cat, but with the amount of power IVF produces, you can do a non-superconductor electromagnet on ACES that can produce a magnetoshell in the 50-100m diameter range (if I'm remembering my calculations correctly)...

~Jon

Offline sanman

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Re: Magnetoshell Aerobraking & Aerodynamics
« Reply #87 on: 05/16/2016 05:34 pm »
So because this technology works with plasma, it's best for thin upper-atmospheric conditions. Could it ever be suitable for upper stage recovery? Like, for example, could this tech somehow be refitted onto the upper stage of F9R, to help it "fly" back for a hoverslam? Could it even help lower stage for RTLS? Musk has previously said that he views flying as simply a matter of achieving particular L/D numbers, regardless of how they are achieved. So would  magnetoshell be able to achieve the required L/D to assist reusability/recovery?

Is magnetoshell being investigated for Mars EDL, since Mars has that taller and much thinner atmosphere? If the magnetoshell approach was used for Mars EDL, would it be able to significantly reduce your retropropulsion requirements, and by how much? In what ways could this translate into improvements for the MCT/BFS?
« Last Edit: 05/16/2016 05:41 pm by sanman »

Offline jongoff

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Re: Magnetoshell Aerobraking & Aerodynamics
« Reply #88 on: 05/16/2016 09:19 pm »
So because this technology works with plasma, it's best for thin upper-atmospheric conditions. Could it ever be suitable for upper stage recovery? Like, for example, could this tech somehow be refitted onto the upper stage of F9R, to help it "fly" back for a hoverslam? Could it even help lower stage for RTLS? Musk has previously said that he views flying as simply a matter of achieving particular L/D numbers, regardless of how they are achieved. So would  magnetoshell be able to achieve the required L/D to assist reusability/recovery?

Is magnetoshell being investigated for Mars EDL, since Mars has that taller and much thinner atmosphere? If the magnetoshell approach was used for Mars EDL, would it be able to significantly reduce your retropropulsion requirements, and by how much? In what ways could this translate into improvements for the MCT/BFS?

I think up-thread Dave mention that the testing they'll do in Phase II will help them determine if MAC could be used for EDL applications. The problem is that a lot of the physics gets more complicated when you get to higher atmospheric densities and slower speeds. I'm optimistic that MAC could at least simplify orbital reentry/recovery, but Dave is always trying to keep me from getting too enthusiastic about it for Mars or Earth EDL applications, before they have more testing/analysis to support such claims. :-)

One thing to keep in mind (also discussed up-thread) is that it isn't clear yet if MAC can provide useful lift. Which means worst, case you may have to assume a ballistic flight profile (albeit a ballistic flight profile with a very low and actively controllable ballistic coefficient).

~Jon

Offline sanman

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Re: Magnetoshell Aerobraking & Aerodynamics
« Reply #89 on: 05/17/2016 11:41 am »

One thing to keep in mind (also discussed up-thread) is that it isn't clear yet if MAC can provide useful lift. Which means worst, case you may have to assume a ballistic flight profile (albeit a ballistic flight profile with a very low and actively controllable ballistic coefficient).

~Jon


So you guys were saying that Magnetoshell seems to behave like a volumetric parachute only, and perhaps doesn't provide deflection necessary for lift.
But magnetic fields can deflect things, bending the charged particles along their field lines. Why isn't that useful deflection? It's just a matter of shape.
(Also, why do you only want to exploit magnetism, as compared to overall Lorentz force?)

Just as an airfoil with the correct shape can re-direct the force of an oncoming flowstream in an orthogonal direction to provide lift, likewise magnetic field lines should also be able to deflect the plasma flow orthogonally, if the field lines have the right shape. Sure, the coupling between the plasma and a magnetic field is weaker and thus it's not an immediate/abrupt deflection like with a solid airfoil surface, but you've got that large volume to buffer/accumulate your interaction anyway.
The analogy to your "Volumetric Parachute" would be the "Volumetric Airfoil".


Seems like you should want to focus on getting the magnetic field lines into the correct contour shape, to effectively do what an airfoil does and provide the lift. And you'd want your field to be acting on a large enough volume to provide enough buffer for interaction because of the weaker coupling.

The volumetric-parachute/pure-drag thing sounds like the basic simple case scenario, and then the lifting-airfoil thing would be the more custom-contoured case.

How does this stuff get tested anyway - in wind tunnels?

And if Magnetoshell is useful for EDL, couldn't it also provide at least a small benefit during ascent as well?
« Last Edit: 05/17/2016 01:17 pm by sanman »

Offline jongoff

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Re: Magnetoshell Aerobraking & Aerodynamics
« Reply #90 on: 05/17/2016 05:23 pm »

One thing to keep in mind (also discussed up-thread) is that it isn't clear yet if MAC can provide useful lift. Which means worst, case you may have to assume a ballistic flight profile (albeit a ballistic flight profile with a very low and actively controllable ballistic coefficient).

~Jon


So you guys were saying that Magnetoshell seems to behave like a volumetric parachute only, and perhaps doesn't provide deflection necessary for lift.
But magnetic fields can deflect things, bending the charged particles along their field lines. Why isn't that useful deflection? It's just a matter of shape.
(Also, why do you only want to exploit magnetism, as compared to overall Lorentz force?)

Just as an airfoil with the correct shape can re-direct the force of an oncoming flowstream in an orthogonal direction to provide lift, likewise magnetic field lines should also be able to deflect the plasma flow orthogonally, if the field lines have the right shape. Sure, the coupling between the plasma and a magnetic field is weaker and thus it's not an immediate/abrupt deflection like with a solid airfoil surface, but you've got that large volume to buffer/accumulate your interaction anyway.
The analogy to your "Volumetric Parachute" would be the "Volumetric Airfoil".


Seems like you should want to focus on getting the magnetic field lines into the correct contour shape, to effectively do what an airfoil does and provide the lift. And you'd want your field to be acting on a large enough volume to provide enough buffer for interaction because of the weaker coupling.

The volumetric-parachute/pure-drag thing sounds like the basic simple case scenario, and then the lifting-airfoil thing would be the more custom-contoured case.

[caveat: Dave's the expert, I'm just a semi-educated fan, but I'll try to give an answer based on my best understanding.]

It's more complicated than that. You start with a neutral particle that's nearly at rest relative to the fast moving spacecraft. Once it charge exchanges with an ion in the magnetized plasma, it's now a charged particle at rest relative to moving magnetic field lines, which then cause the charged particle to start spiraling around the field lines in a direction driven by Lorentz Forces. The problem is that after a short period this newly ionized particle will end up charge exchanging with another atmospheric neutral, resulting it in it being neutralized and then flying off in whatever direction it was going in, at whatever velocity it had picked up by that point. The timing of when it has its next collision depends on how dense the atmosphere is and how fast the spacecraft is moving, and the timing has a distribution to it, it's not a precise thing. To make things more complicated once it's been neutralized by that first charge exchange collision, it has the chance of being collided with again before it leaves the magnetized plasma volume. In fact for large MAC volumes, you might very well have a single particle ionized and reneutralized several times between when it first enters the volume and when it finally leaves.

In the end, the momentum transfer is going to depend on the final velocity and direction of the particles as they leave the plasma volume relative to when they entered it. Is there some way to shape the magnetic field such that more particles emit in some off-track direction? Possibly. But it's a really, really non-trivially complex problem to model, since you're talking about interactions of huge numbers of particles. Unless I'm missing something.

Quote
How does this stuff get tested anyway - in wind tunnels?

Mostly in vacuum chambers--we're talking hypersonic flow regimes that tend to be really hard to mimic in a wind-tunnel. Dave hinted above at his super-hypersonic tests they're looking at doing in this Phase II.

Quote
And if Magnetoshell is useful for EDL, couldn't it also provide at least a small benefit during ascent as well?

Huh? How?

~Jon

Offline sanman

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Re: Magnetoshell Aerobraking & Aerodynamics
« Reply #91 on: 05/17/2016 06:32 pm »
Hi, thanks for the great reply


[caveat: Dave's the expert, I'm just a semi-educated fan, but I'll try to give an answer based on my best understanding.]

It's more complicated than that. You start with a neutral particle that's nearly at rest relative to the fast moving spacecraft. Once it charge exchanges with an ion in the magnetized plasma, it's now a charged particle at rest relative to moving magnetic field lines, which then cause the charged particle to start spiraling around the field lines in a direction driven by Lorentz Forces. The problem is that after a short period this newly ionized particle will end up charge exchanging with another atmospheric neutral, resulting it in it being neutralized and then flying off in whatever direction it was going in, at whatever velocity it had picked up by that point. The timing of when it has its next collision depends on how dense the atmosphere is and how fast the spacecraft is moving, and the timing has a distribution to it, it's not a precise thing. To make things more complicated once it's been neutralized by that first charge exchange collision, it has the chance of being collided with again before it leaves the magnetized plasma volume. In fact for large MAC volumes, you might very well have a single particle ionized and reneutralized several times between when it first enters the volume and when it finally leaves.

In the end, the momentum transfer is going to depend on the final velocity and direction of the particles as they leave the plasma volume relative to when they entered it. Is there some way to shape the magnetic field such that more particles emit in some off-track direction? Possibly. But it's a really, really non-trivially complex problem to model, since you're talking about interactions of huge numbers of particles. Unless I'm missing something.

So that kind of sounds like "mean free path" - how long you typically go without bumping into something.

Since it's a "control volume" rather than a "control surface", I guess you can't really talk about a "boundary layer" for flow separation, but surely there are certain geometries (cusps?) that would be more conducive to throwing off the particles in particular directions, ejecting/expelling them from the field.

Quote
Mostly in vacuum chambers--we're talking hypersonic flow regimes that tend to be really hard to mimic in a wind-tunnel. Dave hinted above at his super-hypersonic tests they're looking at doing in this Phase II.

Cool - when does Phase II happen?

Quote
Quote
And if Magnetoshell is useful for EDL, couldn't it also provide at least a small benefit during ascent as well?

Huh? How?

~Jon

How about when you're ascending through the upper atmosphere? Maybe it would be better for a scramjet traveling at high Mach for prolonged period.

Somebody should bring this idea to Elon Musk, because it sounds like it would be great for his MCT. Imagine if they spend all that time and effort developing MCT, and then this Magnetoshell thing comes out soon afterwards, and shows huge performance advantages they missed at on.
« Last Edit: 05/17/2016 07:02 pm by sanman »

Offline JasonAW3

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Re: Magnetoshell Aerobraking & Aerodynamics
« Reply #92 on: 05/17/2016 06:57 pm »

Quote
Quote
And if Magnetoshell is useful for EDL, couldn't it also provide at least a small benefit during ascent as well?

Huh? How?

~Jon

How about when you're ascending through the upper atmosphere? Maybe it would be better for a scramjet traveling at high Mach for prolonged period.

I think that you misunderstand the purpose of the Magnetoshell.  it INCREASES drag to slow down and protect the craft using it.  Unfortunately, this means that it would likely increase drag for any craft trying to use it to go hypersonic.
« Last Edit: 05/17/2016 06:57 pm by JasonAW3 »
My God!  It's full of universes!

Offline sanman

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Re: Magnetoshell Aerobraking & Aerodynamics
« Reply #93 on: 05/17/2016 07:08 pm »

I think that you misunderstand the purpose of the Magnetoshell.  it INCREASES drag to slow down and protect the craft using it.  Unfortunately, this means that it would likely increase drag for any craft trying to use it to go hypersonic.

Well, I get that it produces drag - it's meant for reentry deceleration in upper atmosphere - but I thought it could be used for steering as well.

But, gee, I wonder how much it could radically improve MCT? Maybe MCT wouldn't have to be as fat, like some are saying it will be, since a magnetoshell could provide instant virtual ''fatness" or drag on demand.
« Last Edit: 05/17/2016 07:12 pm by sanman »

Offline JasonAW3

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Re: Magnetoshell Aerobraking & Aerodynamics
« Reply #94 on: 05/17/2016 07:24 pm »

I think that you misunderstand the purpose of the Magnetoshell.  it INCREASES drag to slow down and protect the craft using it.  Unfortunately, this means that it would likely increase drag for any craft trying to use it to go hypersonic.

Well, I get that it produces drag - it's meant for reentry deceleration in upper atmosphere - but I thought it could be used for steering as well.

But, gee, I wonder how much it could radically improve MCT? Maybe MCT wouldn't have to be as fat, like some are saying it will be, since a magnetoshell could provide instant virtual ''fatness" or drag on demand.

That might be an option, but as Boeing owns the patent, I seriously doubt that SpaceX would use it or be allowed to use it.
My God!  It's full of universes!

Offline sanman

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Re: Magnetoshell Aerobraking & Aerodynamics
« Reply #95 on: 05/17/2016 07:41 pm »
That might be an option, but as Boeing owns the patent, I seriously doubt that SpaceX would use it or be allowed to use it.

Ouch - that's too bad - that's like patenting the tokamak or the parachute :(

Good thing Goddard didn't patent everything

Man's biplanetary future is hostage to patents :(
« Last Edit: 05/17/2016 07:46 pm by sanman »

Offline Jim

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Re: Magnetoshell Aerobraking & Aerodynamics
« Reply #96 on: 05/17/2016 08:06 pm »

Well, I get that it produces drag - it's meant for reentry deceleration in upper atmosphere - but I thought it could be used for steering as well.


Why?  There is no issue with steering.  Why add another system that is only useful for one or so minute of flight during ascent when there is a perfectly good one with gimbaling engines.

Offline Jim

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Re: Magnetoshell Aerobraking & Aerodynamics
« Reply #97 on: 05/17/2016 08:07 pm »

Ouch - that's too bad - that's like patenting the tokamak or the parachute :(


No, not the same. 

Offline jongoff

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Re: Magnetoshell Aerobraking & Aerodynamics
« Reply #98 on: 05/17/2016 09:04 pm »
So that kind of sounds like "mean free path" - how long you typically go without bumping into something.

Since it's a "control volume" rather than a "control surface", I guess you can't really talk about a "boundary layer" for flow separation, but surely there are certain geometries (cusps?) that would be more conducive to throwing off the particles in particular directions, ejecting/expelling them from the field.

Yeah, it seems like it might be possible, but at least for now I've been assuming it's a pure drag device until proven otherwise. Controlled lift would be huge though for a wide range of applications if they can get that through field shaping.

Quote
Cool - when does Phase II happen?

No idea--Dave would have to answer that. But they just barely announced the NIAC Phase 2 late last week, so we're probably talking a minimum of at least 2-4 months from now till they have a contract negotiated and work started.

Quote
Somebody should bring this idea to Elon Musk, because it sounds like it would be great for his MCT. Imagine if they spend all that time and effort developing MCT, and then this Magnetoshell thing comes out soon afterwards, and shows huge performance advantages they missed at on.

I can't speak for Dave, but I've heard from a wide range of sources that SpaceX has a bit of a history of... "in-housing other people's ideas", so I hope he treads carefully, and protects his IP well.

But I agree that MAC, if it scales as expected, could have huge impacts for in-space transportation architectures envisioned by SpaceX, ULA, NASA, and other groups.

~Jon

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Re: Magnetoshell Aerobraking & Aerodynamics
« Reply #99 on: 05/17/2016 09:07 pm »

I think that you misunderstand the purpose of the Magnetoshell.  it INCREASES drag to slow down and protect the craft using it.  Unfortunately, this means that it would likely increase drag for any craft trying to use it to go hypersonic.

Well, I get that it produces drag - it's meant for reentry deceleration in upper atmosphere - but I thought it could be used for steering as well.

But, gee, I wonder how much it could radically improve MCT? Maybe MCT wouldn't have to be as fat, like some are saying it will be, since a magnetoshell could provide instant virtual ''fatness" or drag on demand.

That might be an option, but as Boeing owns the patent, I seriously doubt that SpaceX would use it or be allowed to use it.

Boeing doesn't own a patent on Magnetoshell Aerocapture. MAC is an MSNW-developed technology. I don't know where MSNW stand as far as IP protection on that so far, but I don't think Boeing has anything to do with it. I do hope though that MSNW does a good job of securing their IP, as I think this could be a pretty enabling technology for a lot of players. And good IP protection on legitimately innovative technologies can encourage other players to play nice.

~Jon

Tags: aerocapture 
 

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