Author Topic: VASIMR Engine  (Read 209834 times)

Offline TakeOff

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Re: VASIMR Engine
« Reply #300 on: 12/03/2015 07:50 am »
In case you've missed it, this presentation might give you clues and lead ons:
http://spirit.as.utexas.edu/~fiso/telecon/Carter_10-29-14/

(And I'm pretending to talk to guys' on my own level of ignorance. I'm not the educator in this game.)
« Last Edit: 12/04/2015 06:37 pm by TakeOff »

Offline Cinder

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Re: VASIMR Engine
« Reply #301 on: 12/03/2015 08:03 pm »
« Last Edit: 12/03/2015 08:05 pm by Cinder »
NEC ULTIMA SI PRIOR

Offline AegeanBlue

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Re: VASIMR Engine
« Reply #302 on: 03/07/2016 02:27 am »
I missed it originally but Planetary Radio visited Ad Astra Rocket Company and had a report:

http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/2016/0104-2016_review.html

Offline qraal

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Re: VASIMR Engine
« Reply #303 on: 03/22/2016 09:10 am »
What do you want to change, and I can tell you if it's possible.

Adam

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. Monroy
MonroyART
monroyart.net

Offline Nilof

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Re: VASIMR Engine
« Reply #304 on: 03/22/2016 09:46 am »
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. Monroy
MonroyART
monroyart.net

You might also be interested in these two threads from a year ago on solar electric propulsion.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=36787
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=36789.0

I believe some people were posting artwork there too and asking the community about technical details.

VASIMR is only one of many concepts, it just happens to have gotten a lot of press and currently the VX-200 is the biggest electric thruster available. This may change in the near future since Hall effect thrusters have become a lot better, and new options such as electrodeless lorentz force thrusters could eventually become better than VASIMR in every way.
For a variable Isp spacecraft running at constant power and constant acceleration, the mass ratio is linear in delta-v.   Δv = ve0(MR-1). Or equivalently: Δv = vef PMF. Also, this is energy-optimal for a fixed delta-v and mass ratio.

Offline leovinus

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Re: VASIMR Engine
« Reply #305 on: 02/24/2017 04:12 am »
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/

Offline Archibald

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Re: VASIMR Engine
« Reply #306 on: 02/24/2017 05:53 am »
Even Andy Weir succumbed to the 2012 VASIMR-hype. The ship in the Martin is VASIMR-powered :p
Han shot first and Gwynne Shotwell !

Offline tea monster

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Re: VASIMR Engine
« Reply #307 on: 02/24/2017 10:48 am »
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/

I was the guy asking about technical details for artwork. Here is the ship I came up with: https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/maya-manned-mars-ion-drive/944674

Although some of the newer SEP systems can be technically superior, AdAstra are the only people currently working on producing a space-worthy high-power thruster.

Ironically, the Asteroid Redirect mission looks like it is going to be cancelled, largely due to having 'not enough to do with going to Mars'. This is a big shame as it would have given us a space-worthy high power SEP system, which is widely regarded as a vital puzzle piece for manned travel around the solar system. Because they want to concentrate on 'Going straight to Mars' (which at this point has no mission planned or direct funding) we are now back to looking at power point presentations and research papers rather than building flight hardware. Sigh.

Offline savuporo

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Re: VASIMR Engine
« Reply #308 on: 05/28/2017 01:39 am »
Orion - the first and only manned not-too-deep-space craft

Offline Raj2014

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Re: VASIMR Engine
« Reply #309 on: 05/28/2017 07:57 pm »

Offline savuporo

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Re: VASIMR Engine
« Reply #310 on: 05/28/2017 08:03 pm »
Fascinating to see but why is progress on V.A.S.I.M.R slow? 

speed = F(money)

Orion - the first and only manned not-too-deep-space craft

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: VASIMR Engine
« Reply #311 on: 05/28/2017 08:17 pm »
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.
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Offline Raj2014

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Re: VASIMR Engine
« Reply #312 on: 05/28/2017 10:56 pm »
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.     
« Last Edit: 06/02/2017 06:37 pm by Raj2014 »

Offline A_M_Swallow

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Re: VASIMR Engine
« Reply #313 on: 06/03/2017 10:41 pm »
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.     

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

Offline Asteroza

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Re: VASIMR Engine
« Reply #314 on: 06/05/2017 12:07 am »
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.

Which is why the CAT thruster that will be flying on a cubesat demo is interesting, since it is principally the same, just using a comparatively large permanent magnet (which is feasible at this scale, but probably unattractive at larger scales, hence VASIMR's superconducting magnets).

http://www.phasefour.io/

These guys also did a kickstarter to fund early work as well.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/longmier/cat-launch-a-water-propelled-satellite-into-deep-s

http://pepl.engin.umich.edu/thrusters/CAT.html

Though CAT has a fixed magnetic configuration, so it can't shift between high thrust and high efficiency modes like VASIMR can?

Online spacenut

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Re: VASIMR Engine
« Reply #315 on: 06/05/2017 06:46 pm »
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. 

Offline Raj2014

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Re: VASIMR Engine
« Reply #316 on: 06/06/2017 11:20 pm »
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.     

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

Yes, I have seen this before. Was the funding Ad Astra received not enough? After they have finished working on VASIMR for 100 hours what is the next step?     
« Last Edit: 06/11/2017 12:03 am by Raj2014 »

Offline Star One

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Re: VASIMR Engine
« Reply #317 on: 08/10/2017 07:49 pm »
NASA’s plasma rocket making progress toward a 100-hour firing

Now, the company is firing VASIMR for about five minutes at a time.

Quote
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.

Quote
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."

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/08/nasas-plasma-rocket-making-progress-toward-a-100-hour-firing/
« Last Edit: 08/10/2017 07:53 pm by Star One »

Offline Katana

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Re: VASIMR Engine
« Reply #318 on: 08/11/2017 04:44 am »
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.
Clustering even more hall thrusters could reach similiar performance easier.

This is one downside of VASMIR.

Offline Stormbringer

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Re: VASIMR Engine
« Reply #319 on: 08/16/2017 11:34 am »
^ on that note...

https://phys.org/news/2017-08-thruster-efficiency-future-spaceflight.html

1.  Will this mean HETs will be able to produce velocities of over 100,000 miles per hour soon? (assuming the high end of the efficiency increase of this new design plus the articles assertion that current hall effect thrusters can produce velocities of about 70K miles per hour.)

Quote
Plasma ejected from the exhaust end of the thruster can deliver great speeds, typically around 70,000 mph.


and

Quote
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.


53.5 X 70,000=37450

37,450+70,000=107,450

2.  probably, -similar refinements in VASIMR design could probably increase it's efficiency too. after all refinement of modeling of magnetic nozzles resulted in an more than doubling of the max theoretical velocity of Antimatter engines and this translated into advancements of other propulsion sustems that used magnetic nozzles.
When antigravity is outlawed only outlaws will have antigravity.

 

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