A potential opportunity to enhance Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (IEC) fusion propulsion exists by introducing a magnetic dipole into the IEC chamber. The dipole fields should increase the plasma density, hence fusion rate, in the center region of the IEC and the combined IEC and dipole confinement properties will reduce plasma losses. To demonstrate that a hybrid Dipole‐IEC (DaIEC) configuration can provide improved confinement vs. a stand alone IEC, a first model DaIEC experiment has been benchmarked against a reference IEC. A triple Langmuir probe was used to measure the electron temperature and density. It was confirmed that the magnetic field increases the electron density by an order of magnitude and the addition of a controlled electrical potential to the dipole structure allows control of space charge buildup in the dense core region. This paper describes the dipole assisted IEC concept, its advantages, and soon missions it is well suited for. Here the present status of DaIEC experiments are described, the issues for scale up are discussed, and a conceptual plan for a power unit development is presented.
Space Propulsion Based on Dipole Assisted IEC System
SPACE TECH.& APPLIC.INT.FORUM-STAIF 2006: 10th Conf Thermophys Applic Microgravity; 23rd Symp Space Nucl Pwr & Propulsion; 4th Conf Human/Robotic Tech & Nat'l Vision for Space Explor.; 4th Symp Space Coloniz.; 3rd Symp on New Frontiers & Future Concepts ; 2006 ; Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA)
AIP Conference Proceedings ; 813 , 1 ; 1240-1248
2006-01-20
9 pages
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
Space Propulsion Based on Dipole Assisted IEC System
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