Design of a rapid transit to Mars mission using laser-thermal propulsion

Duplay, Emmanuel; Bao, Zhuo Fan; Rosero, Sebastian Rodriguez; Sinha, Arnab; Higgins, Andrew

doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2021.11.032

Cited by 11 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…The results in the previous section give insights regarding the optimal trajectory characteristics for 20-day rapid transit missions. A recent study evaluated 45-day missions to Mars by using laser-thermal propulsion [11]. Although this method also used lasers, it did not use light sails and also added a thermal propulsion component.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interplanetary Rapid Transit Missions from Earth to Mars using Directed Laser Energy Driven Light Sails

Mohanalingam¹,

Carr²

2023

Preprint

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Interest in the exploration of, and the establishment of a human settlement, on Mars is rapidly growing. To accomplish this, rapid transit will be required to bring important supplies and cargo. Current missions to Mars take at least 150 days, which would be too long in case of emergencies or urgent needs. Therefore, we propose the use of a cutting-edge technology that could allow transit times as short as 20 days: laser energy driven light sails. This propulsion method uses a ground-based laser array to propel a small, lightweight spacecraft attached to a light sail to very high speeds, enabling missions that are much faster than current missions. By utilizing a MATLAB model and a laser propulsion computational tool, we visualize and determine the optimal trajectories and departure windows for these missions. We discuss these trajectories and show that these missions are possible during specific launch windows within a 27-month time period between 2030-2032, but have practical challenges within this period as well. During solar conjunction, such rapid transit missions are limited due to the proximity of the sun, but rapid transits are possible during all orbital phases when the transit time requirement is relaxed. Laser arrays capable of generating up to 13 GW are necessary to enable 20day missions with a 5 kg spacecraft, capable of carrying valuable lightweight cargo to astronauts, near conjunction, but only 0.55 GW is required around opposition. Required spacecraft velocities always exceed the solar system escape velocity and the trajectories are hyperbolic. A significant challenge for future work involves mechanisms and processes for deceleration and entry, descent, and landing. A ground-based laser array on Mars could address some aspects of this challenge, but orbital geometry limits deceleration potential, implying that payloads would need to be robust to large deceleration and impact gloads. These 20-day missions to Mars can serve as precursors to more complex, distant missions. Spacecraft mass capabilities can be increased while also decreasing transit times by optimizing the laser array and light sail properties. Multiple spacecraft may also be launched and boosted simultaneously to carry more payload and decrease costs. This work is intended to serve as a proof of concept that lightweight payloads can be transported via such missions. Technologies enabling rapid transit missions can be developed in the next several decades and be applied to deep space missions to other celestial bodies and journeys to interstellar space.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interplanetary Rapid Transit Missions from Earth to Mars using Directed Laser Energy Driven Light Sails

Mohanalingam¹,

Carr²

2023

Preprint

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“…Laser-based propulsion from Earth orbit can launch spacecraft and payloads with laser thermal propulsion to launch 1,000kg payloads or a 40,000kg payload with 4,000MW Laser to achieve ΔV of 13.95 km/s yielding 2X+ ΔV or departure from Earth. 20 Theories & equations…”

Section: High Energy Lasers (Hel)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Untitled

2024

AAOAJ

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Key takeawaysi. Early models suggest potential to achieve CME free Earth safe zone gap and additional hours-day to impact from laser buffer time, which could reduce radiation flux experienced on planet.ii. A CME Clearance Arc Length Ratio of 1 CME t=8.255 : 10,067km CME t=1AU suggests for every ~1 km gap laser creates when CME t=8.255min creates a 10,067 km gap for Earth to orbit through. iii. To neutralise ions when CME at t=8.255min to provide CME Clearance Arc Length of 4.29km for Earth to orbit through, laser or electrons would neutralise 789.98 (km 2 /min) for d Earth-Safe-Zone 43,164km gap around GEO. iv. Reflecting Mirrors in close orbit such as Mercury are discussed to align electrons and CME in phase for recombination and pairing in plasma cluster layers with potential to recover 50-90%+ of beamed energy. v. If approaching θ Laser ≈θ CME ≈θ Mirrors yields greater electron-CME recombination rates, this suggests mirror architecture and greater rates of EMC and e-pair fill rates/degree to neutralise charged ions such as Fe 16+ .

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“…By aligning the phases of a bundle of fiber lasers, the far-field pattern presents a main lobe and several weak side lobes which will increase energy concentration and maintain the beam quality [4]. A large size optical phased array (OPA) of the fiber laser may provide a light source for laser-driven facilities such as a rapid transit to the Mars mission [5], the Breakthrough Starshot project [6][7][8], and the international coherent amplification network [9]. To realize the CBC of fiber lasers, phase control is one of the core works.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cascaded Internal Phase Control of All-Fiber Coherent Fiber Laser Array

Chang

Su²,

Zhang³

et al. 2022

Front. Phys.

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Fiber lasers have been widely used in medical care, industries, and scientific research in recent years. The coherent beam combining of fiber lasers with an internal phase control has drawn many interests at present, which is a promising method to achieve a large-scale optical phased array. In this article, we presented a cascaded internal phase control method to expand the internal all-fiber phased array. The method distributes the phase measurements to a series of internal Mach–Zender interferometers. Then, the phase of each loop is locked by the gradient descent algorithm. The electric control method to compensate π-ambiguity between channels is proposed. Finally, the phases of the three fiber beams are locked experimentally to verify the feasibility of the method, and the residue phase error is better than λ/22.

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Design of a rapid transit to Mars mission using laser-thermal propulsion

Cited by 11 publications

References 43 publications

Interplanetary Rapid Transit Missions from Earth to Mars using Directed Laser Energy Driven Light Sails

Interplanetary Rapid Transit Missions from Earth to Mars using Directed Laser Energy Driven Light Sails

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Cascaded Internal Phase Control of All-Fiber Coherent Fiber Laser Array

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