Speaker
Mr
Jun Song
(Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology, CAS)
Description
The space propulsion system of high performance is required for deep space exploration missions such as Mars and Jupiter exploration. The fusion propulsion system has excellent performance of ultra-high specific impulse, high specific power, and moderate thrust so that it can reflect their advantages in future manned and unmanned deep space exploration. In this paper, preliminary analysis has been conducted in order to investigate the technical requirements of a fusion propulsion system for the Earth-to-Mars mission. The analytic model based on the Williams assumption was adopted and solved using MATLAB. Key parameters such as specific impulse, specific power mission time, and payload ratio for Mars rendezvous missions were analyzed. The preliminary results through qualitative and quantitative analysis show that in order to arrive the Mars in one month with more than 10% of optimal payload ratio, the specific power in the range of 5-15kW/kg is more reasonable, and the specific impulse need to reach 10000 seconds for make full use of inherent advantage of fusion propulsion system, furthermore, the fusion propulsion system can operate in optimal condition in a wide specific power range (1-100kW/kg) at about 10000-20000 seconds. The future fusion space propulsion system can operate in different modes according to the actual mission requirements, the concept of fusion space propulsion system based on GDT can exhaust the high-temperature plasma easily to obtain moderate thrust with high specific impulse, due to its own linear structure. Meanwhile, compared with other fusion propulsion concepts, it has the advantages of simple and compact configuration, plasma steady operation, low technical difficulty, and construction cost, it is very suitable for deep space exploration. In this paper, the research development of GDT-based fusion space propulsion system is investigated, we also clear the key technologies required. the overall calculation and analysis can provide a certain reference for the development of the future fusion space propulsion system.
Primary author
Mr
Jun Song
(Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology, CAS)
Co-authors
Prof.
Fang Wang
(Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology, CAS)
Dr
Qiusun Zeng
(Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology, CAS)
Prof.
Yican Wu
(Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology, CAS)
Prof.
Yunqing Bai
(Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology, CAS)
Prof.
Zhibin Chen
(Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology, CAS)
