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We explore the capability of a VASIMR ® reusable probe "catapult" concept to send a 4000-5000 kg spacecraft to Jupiter on a Hohmann-like transfer orbit, arriving in just 36 months elapsed time. The VASIMR ® performs a slingshot pass close to the Sun and uses the high level of available solar energy to produce a sustained burst of high thrust. Enough kinetic energy is provided to the probe to reach Jupiter orbit within 0.7-1.4 AU. The Catapult release the probe with enough speed to reach Jupiter in three years, and returns to Earth for another mission. This study identifies the important parameters in the probe ejector operation (power level, propellant mass, payload release point, distance of closest approach to the Sun), and scan these parameters to understand and optimize the capabilities of the proposed system. We assume that the Catapult and its payload begin at the Earth's sphere of influence (SOI), and are coasting in the Earth's orbit about the Sun. The VASIMR ® engine's power rating must match the peak power available when the spacecraft is closest to the Sun. The solar array is assumed to be a planar array rather than a concentrator since it will have to operate near the Sun, where a concentrator would overheat photovoltaic cells. The feasibility of not releasing the payload and using the VASIMR ® to provide thrust for the duration of the transfer orbit will also be examined. In this scenario, the VASIMR ® RF generators could serve double duty as radar RF sources.

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We describe a proposed laboratory-experiment research program that will answer the fundamental question: What is the role of reconnection in opening and closing the solar magnetic field? While attacking this question, we will also address the most important, longstanding questions on magnetic reconnection, in all contexts: What determines the rate of reconnection, and whether or not it is bursty? How is the released energy partitioned between thermal, kinetic, and particle? Of course, it seems completely contradictory to use a 2 laboratory experiment to study an open system, because so far all laboratory plasmas have very solid walls. The pioneering feature of our program is that the experiments will be performed on the International Space Station (ISS). Only by going into space can we obtain the open domain that is absolutely essential for studying the observed solar/heliospheric phenomena. We describe a research program that will provide the instrumentation infrastructure, modeling and solar data expertise and initial scientific understanding required to develop the privately funded Aurora electric propulsion package with its VASIMR ® VF-200 high powered plasma source into a wall-less, orbiting ISS Space Plasma Laboratory (ISPL) national facility. The VAriable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR ® ) is a high power electric spacecraft propulsion system, capable of I sp /thrust modulation at constant power [E. A. Bering, III, et al., "Observations of single-pass ion cyclotron heating in a transsonic flowing plasma," Phys. Plasmas, 17, 043509, doi: 10.1063/ 1.3389205, (2010).]. The VASIMR ® uses a helicon source to generate plasma. The plasma is leaked though a strong magnetic mirror to a second stage. In the second stage, the plasma is energized by a process that uses left hand polarized slow mode waves launched from the high field side of the ion cyclotron resonance. The single pass ion cyclotron heating (ICH) produces a substantial increase in ion velocity. Ad Astra Rocket Company (AARC) is planning to fly a plasma rocket experiment as a major element of the company's "Aurora" electric power and propulsion test platform on the ISS in 2014. The Aurora platform will support a dual-jet magnetic quadrupole 200 kW version of the VASIMR  plasma rocket (the VF-200). It will consist of two 100 kW parallel plasma engines with opposite magnetic dipoles, resulting in a near zero-torque magnetic system. The system will be available for basic plasma physics research in parallel with the testing of the VF-200 engine performance as a high power electric propulsion system. The Aurora package would thus become a National Plasma Physics Laboratory (the ISPL) suitable for plasma physics studies in an open, wall free near-Earth orbital laboratory environment. An ISS arm deployed instrument package similar to the Plasma Diagnostics Package used on STS-3 in conjunction with the OSS-1 experiment and STS-51F in conjunction with Spacelab 2 has been proposed to NASA. The Aurora Plasma Diagnostics Package (APDP) will carry La...