So, I am a comic book artist working on a science fiction comic book and I need help. I want to kind of base my space ships design on the VASIMR system but need help in understand how it actually works. I am a physicist and studying engineering so I have kind of an idea. But what I really want to know if the VASIMR propulsion system design can be changed for different space craft designing or if the system has to be built the way it is designed for it to actually work.L. MonroyMonroyARTmonroyart.net
Hadn't heard from VASIMR for a while and came across this. Nice overview and description of 100kw/100hour test to come up. https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/02/nasas-longshot-bet-on-a-revolutionary-rocket-may-be-about-to-pay-off/
Two relevant materials for the ongoing test campaignhttp://adastrarocket.com/technical-articles/JPC%20AIAA-2016-4950.pdfhttps://www.slideshare.net/ChrisHays4/final-technical-report-70423826
Fascinating to see but why is progress on V.A.S.I.M.R slow?
But did Ad Astra get more funding from N.A.S.A for V.A.S.I.M.R? I read many articles saying that Ad Astra got more funding to go towards V.A.S.I.M.R or was that not enough or are the articles false? I also do know that Ad Astra has other projects they are working on.
And because VASIMR is an overly complicated way of doing electric propulsion (needs superconducting magnetic coils, which are expensive to keep cool) and really isn't viable at commercial commsat scale.
Quote from: Raj2014 on 05/28/2017 10:56 pmBut did Ad Astra get more funding from N.A.S.A for V.A.S.I.M.R? I read many articles saying that Ad Astra got more funding to go towards V.A.S.I.M.R or was that not enough or are the articles false? I also do know that Ad Astra has other projects they are working on. In 2015 NASA gave Ad Astra more money to develop a 100kW VASIMR under the NextSTEP program.https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/moore_aes_tagged.pdf
This week, Ad Astra reported that it remains on target toward that goal. The company completed a successful performance review with NASA after its second year of the contract, and it has now fired the engine for a total of 10 hours while making significant modifications to its large vacuum chamber to handle the thermal load produced by the rocket engine.
When Ars visited the company early in 2017, the company was pulsing its rocket for about 30 seconds at a time. Now, the company is firing VASIMR for about five minutes at a time, founder Franklin Chang-Diaz told Ars. "The limitation right now is moisture outgassing from all the new hardware in both the rocket and the vacuum chamber," he said. "This overwhelms the pumps, so there is a lot of conditioning that has to be done little by little."
Why not cluster a lot of smaller cheaper VASIMR engines for a larger vehicle? Kind of like a Falcon 9 vs a Zenith. Both about the same thrust but Falcon 9 cheaper or still in operation.
Plasma ejected from the exhaust end of the thruster can deliver great speeds, typically around 70,000 mph.
In particular, the specific impulse of the thruster increased by 1.1 to 53.5 percent when the discharge voltage was in the range of 100 to 200 Volts.