Microwave beam-driven sail flight experiments

Details Microwave beam-driven sail flight experiments Microwave beam-driven sail flight experiments

Feb 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001aipc..552..540b&link_type=abstract

Space Technology and Applications International Forum - 2001. AIP Conference Proceedings, Volume 552, pp. 540-545 (2001).

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Applications

Artificial Earth Satellites, Observatories And Site Testing, Spaceborne And Space Research Instruments, Apparatus, And Components, Radio, Microwave

Scientific paper

We have observed flight of ultralight sails of Carbon-Carbon microtruss material at several gees acceleration. To propel the material we sent a 10 kW, 7 GHz beam into a 10-6 Torr vacuum chamber and onto sails of mass density 5-10 g/m2. At microwave power densities of ~kW/cm2 we saw upward accelerations of several gees and flights of up to 60 cm. Sails so accelerated reached >2000 K from microwave absorption, a capability of carbon which rules out most materials for high acceleration missions. Diagnostics were optical and IR video photography, reflected microwave power and residual gas analysis. Data analysis and comparison with candidate acceleration mechanisms shows that photonic pressure can account for 3 to 30% of the observed acceleration, so another cause must be present. Future research will measure the thrust precisely using a pendulum to try to identify the acceleration mechanism. In the future, microwave-driven acceleration might be used to propel probes to very high speeds for science missions to the outer solar system, the interstellar region and the nearby stars. .

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