Via Solar Array to the Outer Planets

New Scientist is covering the work of Rudolph Meyer (UCLA), who envisions a vehicle that sounds for all the world like a cross between a solar sail and an ion engine. And in a way, it is: Imagine a flexible solar panel a solid 3125 square meters in size, and imagine this ’solar-electric membrane’ weighing no more than 16 grams per square meter, far lighter than today’s technology allows. I’ll be anxious to see the paper when it’s published in Acta Astronautica, but the gist of the design seems to be this: the solar membrane would power an ion engine array which, conventionally enough, draws xenon ions through a powerful electric grid to create thrust.

The membrane, stabilized by additional ion engines at the corners, could reach remarkable speeds. Meyer talks about 666,000 kilometers per hour — that’s one year to Pluto, and an obvious invitation out into the Kuiper Belt. No show stoppers here, but clearly a design heavily dependent on advances in thin film arrays. I always listen to Geoffrey Landis (NASA GRC) about such matters; he is, after all, the man Robert Forward declared to be his successor in interstellar studies. And Landis is quoted as saying of Rudolph’s idea, “…the extremely high-energy ion-propulsion vehicles he proposes may be a practical alternative technology for future missions to the edge of interstellar space.”

Full article here:

http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=638