ESA Call For Ideas

If you took this idea and then used the energy generated to run a Xeon Plasma engine as a driver, you would also have the ability to steer the asteroid and park it where ever you like.

This could also be used in the future to mine the resourses of the this and other NEOs.

Sapper.

Sapper;

Thank you for your positive reply.

If you have the credentials to run with it then go. I will give you whatever cooperation and support I can muster.

The struggle with using the induced power as a power source for a high voltage application is that the induced voltages are very low requiring magnitudes of voltage step-up

The Dynamic-braking concept is simple but I believe will require cryogenic subsystems in order to keep the resistance of the induction and dissipation circuit branches low enough to accept significant power.

The probability of mission success varies inversely as systems complexity.

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/13150/Electrodynamic-Braking-as-a-method-of-Asteroid-Deflection

Gavilan

Unfortunately my credentials don't match my ideas catalogue yet!

The Xenon engine is a tested unit and does not require huge amouns of fuel or power to run.

So I was looking at a way to enhance a viable idea with a proven idea that can utilise the "Waste" energy being produced.

Two (OK...1.8 to account for losses) for the price of one. More effective.

Hey some of us have ideas...others can carry them off once they get the idea.

Regards,
Sapper

Lucky we'd be working in a vacuum then where all you need to reduce temperature is shade and isolation. No need to insulate (or even enclose) circuitry, leave it open and isolated from direct radiation.

Is this right?

Philo,

I do not know at what temperature various materials start to exhibit superconductive properties. I believe that the subsystems will require super cooling in order to lower the resistance of the circuits to a point where significant power can be accepted by the circuits.

It is important to understand that the resistance the coil windings will vary directly as length and inversely as cross sectional area. It is also important to understand that the induced EMF will vary directly as the length of the coil windings.

In an induction process where the solar field is used as the excitation field for an electromagnetic induction process; I believe the voltage will be self regulating; that means that the voltage will be solely a function of inductor length, the solar field strength, and the asteroid velocity relative to the field angle.

In a purely DC induction process where the circuit current is no longer changing there will be no circuit reactance. Because the orbital velocity of the object is so high, the circuit acceptance will be a function of the circuit resistance and the rate at which power can be dissipated by the dissipation circuit branches.

One priority of research into this potential application is to determine the equilibrium angle between the coil(s) and solar field. There are a number of approaches to deal with the spin of the asteroid as it relates to field/coil angles, regardless of what the natural equilibrium angle is.

The probability of mission success varies inversely as systems complexity.

Gavilan.

I don't think achieving extreme low temperatures would be a significant problem in a vacuum. Effective temperature of open space beyond the atmosphere in a shaded area should achieve close to zero Kelvin. Of course there is the background cosmic radiation (about +3 K I believe) and in near earth orbit there is of course some atmosphere (even if negligable - after all even the moon has an atmosphere of sorts).

Isolating the circuitry from the shading device which would of course develop extreme high temperatures would be a more significant problem but surely since this is a purely mechanical device (well more a structural assembly) the level of complexity would be as close to zero as you can design.

First though we need cheap access to orbit. Once there we can start trying stuff out without the need to endlesly design and redesign ad nauseum until we end up not actually doing anything.