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Look at this thing I found: High Altitude Air breathing ELF Thruster:

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posted on Mar, 31 2015 @ 09:31 AM
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Oh yes! I have to cross post this.

msnwllc.com...


The ELF thruster, funded by the Department of Defense, utilizes Rotating Magnetic Field (RMF) and pulsed-inductive technologies that promise radical advances in space propulsion. The ELF creates, forms, and accelerates field-reversed plasma toroids to high velocity. It has demonstrated the ability to efficiently utilize complex propellants such as Martian Air, Liquid Water, and Hydrazine .

The ELF enables a broad range of high-power propulsion missions. Fundamentally, this technology has significantly greater thrust and power densities than any realizable propulsion technology. The ability to operate on in situ propellants will enable very eccentric orbit propulsion, re-fuelable orbital transfer vehicles, deep space return missions, and even direct drag makeup for extremely low orbits. At current power levels, this thruster technology minimizes system mass, size, and cost, while increasing overall mission flexibility. Finally, extending this technology to higher densities and powers that have been demonstrated in the laboratory, there are mission applications in high-altitude, air-breathing, hypersonic flight and beamed-energy upper stage propulsion that are not feasible with traditional technologies. Please see technical publications below for a complete description of experiments, thruster specifications, and results.



The ELF Thruster. J. Slough, D. Kirtley, and T. Weber. International Electric Propulsion Conference 2009-265 (2009).
Preliminary Performance Measurements of the Air-Breathing ELF Thruster. J. Slough, D. Kirtley, and T. Weber. Joint Army Navy NASA Air Force Conference, Orlando Florida (2008).




edit on 31-3-2015 by stormbringer1701 because: fixed link



posted on Mar, 31 2015 @ 09:47 AM
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a reply to: stormbringer1701

dang that sure looks fancy mister....


but fore real it look pretty interesting i wonder what is testing them out right now? and i wonder if this could be used with LM new fusion reactor?



posted on Mar, 31 2015 @ 09:52 AM
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originally posted by: penroc3
a reply to: stormbringer1701

dang that sure looks fancy mister....


but fore real it look pretty interesting i wonder what is testing them out right now? and i wonder if this could be used with LM new fusion reactor?
an article at next big future says it was tested up to 10 MW.

nextbigfuture.com...

and yes it sure could. but if the LM reactor isn't ready right now what are they providing 10 megawatts with?
edit on 31-3-2015 by stormbringer1701 because: (no reason given)



posted on Mar, 31 2015 @ 10:15 AM
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originally posted by: penroc3
a reply to: stormbringer1701

dang that sure looks fancy mister....


but fore real it look pretty interesting i wonder what is testing them out right now? and i wonder if this could be used with LM new fusion reactor?
i think Slough has his own fusion reactor
www.helionenergy.com...

he is with msnwllc.com... an they licensed the fusion reactor tech to helion.

he is all over this page: msnwllc.com...



posted on Mar, 31 2015 @ 11:58 AM
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a reply to: stormbringer1701

This sounds way cool. After all of these years of no advancements in Space propulsion now all of a sudden "boom!" Here it is....



posted on Mar, 31 2015 @ 12:06 PM
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originally posted by: lostbook
a reply to: stormbringer1701

This sounds way cool. After all of these years of no advancements in Space propulsion now all of a sudden "boom!" Here it is....
i can't quite grasp what they mean by air breathing though because they are also talking about CO2 in the martian atmosphere. so i dunno... they talk about hypersonic but they also talk about sound in the plasma flow too so again i dunno if it means what i hope it means. both of those things could be read two different ways.

OTOH they also say this thing can be used to go to the Oort cloud and set up orbit out there.


(post by mohammedraman removed for a serious terms and conditions violation)

posted on Mar, 31 2015 @ 07:22 PM
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"Air-breathing" in this context means you would be talking about thrusters that use ambient nitrogen/oxygen in the earth's upper atmosphere for propellant.

You would most likely be using it to modify to the orbit or to make up for the drag force on the satellite that is in a highly eccentric orbit (see sentence directly before the bolded in OP for context). There are going to be major problems to conquer to do that.
Conceptually, you could use it to power a very, very high altitude (200-250km?) aircraft, but again, that seems even more far-fetched for the near future.

It's like the Verne gun: we could theoretically shoot something into space. The concept is sound. You just have to conquer a bunch of not-so-minor details.



posted on Mar, 31 2015 @ 08:15 PM
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It seems the high end velocities that could be achieved are impressive, but I could not get a good idea of what the true thrust was, and how long it would take to appreciably accelerate. Wonder how it compares with the ION engines on Dawn.



posted on Mar, 31 2015 @ 08:30 PM
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a reply to: charlyv

i bet if you could get a few types of engines or drives of various types together the ramp up to get to a speed where you needed to be wouldn't be to bad.

and if they were electric in nature then a fusion or regular fission power plant would probably cut the propellants down



posted on Mar, 31 2015 @ 09:11 PM
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originally posted by: charlyv
It seems the high end velocities that could be achieved are impressive, but I could not get a good idea of what the true thrust was, and how long it would take to appreciably accelerate. Wonder how it compares with the ION engines on Dawn.
i cross posted this from my similar posts in Jadestar's thread on Star Treking to Alpha Centauri. In that thread I posted links to additional information.

There was a cite to the exhaust velocity of this thing at 100 KWs of input power. that amounted to 40 KM/s. Also cited was that they have tested this at 10 MW in a laboratory setting. if that resulted in a direct linear relationship to exhaust velocity (which it won't) then this would produce and exhaust velocity of 4,000 KM/s. it won't though because the efficiency of this engine is 85 percent and additionally: the progression in that other cite where 100 KW produced 40 KM/s seems to have only tripled the exhaust velocity as power input was increased from 15 KW to 100 KW. So to a non engineer it looks like this is a miraculous UFO like magickal woo hoo TRW>1 SSTO and beyond thing.

heck; they even mention this being good for Sending stuff to the Oort cloud and doing an orbital insertion out there. insertion i guess into a extreme heliocentric orbit; otherwise one has to say "in orbit around what?"



posted on Mar, 31 2015 @ 09:16 PM
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originally posted by: penroc3
a reply to: charlyv

i bet if you could get a few types of engines or drives of various types together the ramp up to get to a speed where you needed to be wouldn't be to bad.

and if they were electric in nature then a fusion or regular fission power plant would probably cut the propellants down


Engineering is a byotch. generally it's very difficult to just strap different type of engine on an air frame and get it to produce a benefit. that's why we haven't managed it yet. the closest thing to this is probably the Skylon where one engines is designed to act like three different types engines during the ascent. there is good news though.

engines like this are tiny. you could strap a gabilion of them on one airframe. you just have to be able to power them all.



posted on Mar, 31 2015 @ 09:34 PM
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a reply to: stormbringer1701

Right.


I guess i was thinking in a broad context. Say you got your air breathing em thruster into the upper atmosphere with a jet engine and keepp it there with lighter then air technology in a rigid frame then use these new thrusts to maintain your speed with out using any fuel and apparently at high-ish speeds



posted on Mar, 31 2015 @ 09:52 PM
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originally posted by: penroc3
a reply to: stormbringer1701

Right.


I guess i was thinking in a broad context. Say you got your air breathing em thruster into the upper atmosphere with a jet engine and keepp it there with lighter then air technology in a rigid frame then use these new thrusts to maintain your speed with out using any fuel and apparently at high-ish speeds


EM drives do not use fuel except as a power source and they do not need to breathe and they could as easily use solar power.

EM drives are a different class of engine than ion thrusters. Ion thrusters do use fuel for both power and they do exhaust gases that are kept in tanks. they are basically a rocket engine albeit a light weight and highly efficient one.

I don't see why the balloon part would be necessary? Some have proposed using a balloon as a first stage to a two stage to orbit launch system. but i don't see how it would help with this particular type of technology.



posted on Mar, 31 2015 @ 09:54 PM
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originally posted by: charlyv Wonder how it compares with the ION engines on Dawn.


An ELF thruster would be a form of Ion engine. An advantage over say a Hall Thruster would be the ability to vary the thrust.


An air-breathing ion engine would produce less thrust than say a xenon version (because of the atomic weights involved).

A single J58 engine (think SR-71) produces 150 kilo-Newtons. The best ion engines currently produce less than one Newton (sustained -- you can get quite a bit more from a pulse, but that seems less than ideal if we're planning on a powerplant as opposed to a maneuvering thruster). People getting excited about air-breathing, hypersonic, ion-driven aircraft are going to be disappointed...
You need about 25 kiloWatts to get a Newton of thrust with a heavier propellant. I'll let you do the math and see the problem here. It is a depressingly large amount of energy. Like over 7 GigaWatts. Aircraft carriers produce about 200 MegaWatts for some perspective.

Now, if you designed a satellite with drag-reduction, launched it by traditional chemical rockets into a low-earth orbit, conquered the problem of how to funnel large amounts of atoms into your engine(s) without appreciably adding to drag, solve the problem with erosion, power source, etc you might be able to sustain an ultra-high speed, high-altitude "aircraft". Or just a really low, fast satellite.



posted on Mar, 31 2015 @ 10:05 PM
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a reply to: stormbringer1701



For the power source like i said above you could use LM new fusion reactor. and if you could get your rigid lighter then air craft up to speed and altitude with a combination of normal jet and lighter then air technology. you could then switch over to a all elsetric mode using your fusion reactor and these new thrusters and or just switch the jets off when you reached the speed you were looking for



posted on Mar, 31 2015 @ 10:11 PM
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originally posted by: _Del_

originally posted by: charlyv Wonder how it compares with the ION engines on Dawn.


An ELF thruster would be a form of Ion engine. An advantage over say a Hall Thruster would be the ability to vary the thrust.


An air-breathing ion engine would produce less thrust than say a xenon version (because of the atomic weights involved).

A single J58 engine (think SR-71) produces 150 kilo-Newtons. The best ion engines currently produce less than one Newton (sustained -- you can get quite a bit more from a pulse, but that seems less than ideal if we're planning on a powerplant as opposed to a maneuvering thruster). People getting excited about air-breathing, hypersonic, ion-driven aircraft are going to be disappointed...
You need about 25 kiloWatts to get a Newton of thrust with a heavier propellant. I'll let you do the math and see the problem here. It is a depressingly large amount of energy. Like over 7 GigaWatts. Aircraft carriers produce about 200 MegaWatts for some perspective.

Now, if you designed a satellite with drag-reduction, launched it by traditional chemical rockets into a low-earth orbit, conquered the problem of how to funnel large amounts of atoms into your engine(s) without appreciably adding to drag, solve the problem with erosion, power source, etc you might be able to sustain an ultra-high speed, high-altitude "aircraft". Or just a really low, fast satellite.

ion engine progress has been impressive. third generation hall effect thrusters are 4 times faster than the first generation. this thing is a pulsed thruster with a self confining plasmid torus and the pulses are in high frequencies. it has an exhaust velocity of 40 KM/s. in an ideal situation (with no losses) the max vehicle velocity would be 2X exhaust velocity. that would make for 80 KM/s at 100 KW input power. of course there are inefficiencies and losses that bring this down. but the idea that is at ten MW input power this thing would go screaming across the solar system at unheard of speeds.



posted on Mar, 31 2015 @ 10:26 PM
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a reply to: stormbringer1701

It's going to take lots of time to get to the unheard of speeds. It's ideal for a long-range mission across the solar system because of the efficiency (assuming we figure out how to power it). Pretty bad for trapsing about the atmosphere which I was specifically addressing.



posted on Apr, 1 2015 @ 12:31 AM
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originally posted by: _Del_
a reply to: stormbringer1701

It's going to take lots of time to get to the unheard of speeds. It's ideal for a long-range mission across the solar system because of the efficiency (assuming we figure out how to power it). Pretty bad for trapsing about the atmosphere which I was specifically addressing.
ah; but not so long with this. Part of why this is so exciting is because its thrust is not measured in micronewtons

edit on 1-4-2015 by stormbringer1701 because: (no reason given)


erps.spacegrant.org...



The target goal of the prototype MAP thruster will be 10 MW of average jet power, at an Isp of 5 to 10 ksec, and a
thrust of 200 - 400 N.

edit on 1-4-2015 by stormbringer1701 because: (no reason given)



posted on Apr, 1 2015 @ 05:59 AM
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Ad Astra's V200 VASIMR engine news: First the bad news. other unofficial sources have said that the hoped for test on board the ISS has been either cancelled or slipped back again. that's the bad news though i have seen nothing official on that.

but the good news is Ad Astra got NASA funding for the next ten years to continue to improve the design. with that in mind VASIMR is redesignated from V200 to model nomenclature V200-SS for steady state. the immediate new test regime will see longer test runs going on up to 100 hours of continuous runs. with ten years of funding i bet we will see improved prototypes like i was talking about earlier. probably MOAR thrust!

www.parabolicarc.com...

so by the way did the elf thruster guys and the fusion rocket guys! (those are the same people BTW: MSNW LLC of Redmond, Washington.



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