Wind--Pellet Shear Sailing

Abstract

A propulsion concept in which a spacecraft interacts with high-velocity pellets and the interstellar medium is proposed. The pellets are slower than the spacecraft and are accelerated backwards as they are overtaken, imparting a forward acceleration on the spacecraft. This maneuver is possible due to the interaction with a fixed medium (interstellar medium, ISM); as the spacecraft travels through the medium, it is able to extract power from the relative wind. This concept relies upon the relative velocities (shear) between the pellet stream and the fixed medium in order to concentrate the energy of the pellets into the spacecraft and is thus termed wind-pellet shear sailing. The equations governing the mass ratio of pellets to the spacecraft and its dependence on the final spacecraft velocity are derived; the critical role of the efficiency of the power extraction and transfer process is identified. Natural sources of energy are considered as a means to accelerate the pellets to velocities of 1000 to 6000 km/s. Techniques for onboard generation of power via electromagnetic interaction with the ISM are reviewed, with a repetitively stroked plasma magnet being identified as a promising approach. The necessity of the spacecraft to detect and track the pellets as they are overtaken dictates the desired properties of the pellets. Pellet pushers (accelerators) on board the spacecraft are also preliminarily explored in their engineering considerations, with electric field accelerators of charged nanometric particles, Lorentz-force accelerated ionized pellets, or expansion of vaporized pellets via a nozzle being highlighted as potential approaches. A preliminary mission profile is defined in which a 500-kg scientific payload is delivered to orbit about alpha-Centauri within 30 years, using wind-pellet shear sailing as the intermediate stage to bring the spacecraft from 2% to 5.5% of c.