The current‐voltage characteristics of a large probe in low Earth orbit: TSS‐1R results

Thompson, D. C.; Bonifazi, C.; Gilchrist, Brian E.; Williams, S. D.; Raitt, W. J.; Lebreton, Jean‐Pierre; Burke, William J.; Stone, N. H.; Wright, K. H.

doi:10.1029/97gl02958

Cited by 37 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Later investigations of data from the NASA TSS-1R mission showed, that the functional dependence between current and potential for LEO satellites also followed Parker and Murphy, but with an enhancement factor of about 2.5, presumably caused by the high orbital motion of LEO spacecraft [Thompson et al, 1998]. The good agreement between theory and experiments was obtained for beams with energies in the few keV-range.…”

mentioning

confidence: 89%

“…During repeated pulsing, the effective current is 0.1 mA, which is small compared to the ?i thermal electron current to a spacecraft in the ionosphere. Charging rates are expected to be the same as for non-relativistic beams, i.e., to follow the formula of Parker and Murphy [1967], with an enhancement factor of 2.5 for low earth orbit spacecraft as demonstrated in the TSS-1R mission [Thompson et aL 1998]. Significant charging (relative to the beam energy) is expected only when the ambient electron density is below 10 9 m* 3 .…”

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confidence: 94%

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Study of Relativistic Electron Beam Propagation in the Atmosphere-Ionosphere-Magnetosphere

Gilchrist¹,

Khazanov²,

Krause³

et al. 2001

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confidence: 89%

mentioning

confidence: 94%

Study of Relativistic Electron Beam Propagation in the Atmosphere-Ionosphere-Magnetosphere

Gilchrist¹,

Khazanov²,

Krause³

et al. 2001

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“…The tests were performed in 1996, however, the currents measured [2,10] were reported to be factors of two or three times greater than the predictions of the convectional Parker-Murphy (P-M) model and theory [4]. This result was rather surprising since the P-M theory provides an upper limit for current collection.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

An Improved Electron Pre-Sheath Model for TSS-1R Current Enhancement Computations

Cai¹

2017

Aerospace

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This report presents improvements of investigations on the Tethered Satellite System (TSS)-1R electron current enhancement due to magnetic limited collections. New analytical expressions are obtained for the potential and temperature changes across the pre-sheath. The mathematical treatments in this work are more rigorous than one past approach. More experimental measurements collected in the ionosphere during the TSS-1R mission are adopted for validations. The relations developed in this work offer two bounding curves for these data points quite successfully; the average of these two curves is close to the curve-fitting results for the measurements; and an average of 2.95 times larger than the Parker-Murphy theory is revealed. The results indicate that including the pre-sheath analysis is important to compute the electron current enhancement due to magnetic limitations.

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“…0093-3813/$20.00 © 2006 IEEE (with the square-root term slightly modified) and 2.16 have been suggested [7]; we shall simply write a = 2 so as just not to exceed the random current at Φ sph = 0 in an unmagnetized plasma. We found a power law approximation for j * PM to less than 6%, which eases computations over a ψ-range of interest.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We shall assume that current to the sphere follows the Parker-Murphy (PM) law [6], which was modified to fit TSS1R results [7]. Here, the length averaged current is just the current to the sphere.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spherical Collectors Versus Bare Tethers for Drag, Thrust, and Power Generation

Sanmartin

Lorenzini

2006

IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci.

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Abstract-Deorbit, power generation, and thrusting performances of a bare thin-tape tether and an insulated tether with a spherical electron collector are compared for typical conditions in low-Earth orbit and common values of length L = 4−20 km and cross-sectional area of the tether A = 1−5 mm 2 . The relative performance of moderately large spheres, as compared with bare tapes, improves but still lags as one moves from deorbiting to power generation and to thrusting: Maximum drag in deorbiting requires maximum current and, thus, fully reflects on anodic collection capability, whereas extracting power at a load or using a supply to push current against the motional field requires reduced currents. The relative performance also improves as one moves to smaller A, which makes the sphere approach the limiting short-circuit current, and at greater L, with the higher bias only affecting moderately the already large bare-tape current. For a 4-m-diameter sphere, relative performances range from 0.09 sphere-to-bare tether drag ratio for L = 4 km and A = 5 mm 2 to 0.82 thrust-efficiency ratio for L = 20 km and A = 1 mm 2 . Extremely large spheres collecting the short-circuit current at zero bias at daytime (diameters being about 14 m for A = 1 mm 2 and 31 m for A = 5 mm 2 ) barely outperform the bare tape for L = 4 km and are still outperformed by the bare tape for L = 20 km in both deorbiting and power generation; these large spheres perform like the bare tape in thrusting. In no case was sphere or sphere-related hardware taken into account in evaluating system mass, which would have reduced the sphere performances even further.

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The current‐voltage characteristics of a large probe in low Earth orbit: TSS‐1R results

Abstract: Abstract.Measurements

Cited by 37 publications

References 10 publications

Study of Relativistic Electron Beam Propagation in the Atmosphere-Ionosphere-Magnetosphere

Study of Relativistic Electron Beam Propagation in the Atmosphere-Ionosphere-Magnetosphere

An Improved Electron Pre-Sheath Model for TSS-1R Current Enhancement Computations

Spherical Collectors Versus Bare Tethers for Drag, Thrust, and Power Generation

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