Abstract
Before dealing with any model for realistically computing the trajectories of solar-sail vehicles, this chapter reviews a topic of basic importance for spaceflight: the rocket propulsion. This chapter aims at highlighting features peculiar to in-space rocket vehicles and, consequently, to the related mission designs. In particular, one can see that the exhaust speed not always is the main reference quantity in rocket dynamics, though it is important, of course. In addition, the presence of a gravity field may strongly reduce the performance expected from the simple field-free space equation. The properties of photon rockets and ion propulsion rockets are compared through mission cases. A model of general energy-mass flow in rocket, i.e. independently of the particular engine system, is explained in terms of Special Relativity, and then specialized to: (1) nuclear-based photon rocket, and (2) electric propulsion with system efficiencies including the spreads of the exhausting beam. Focus is on trajectories escaping from the solar system.
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Notes
- 1.
Let us remind the reader that the coordinate time is integrable, but not invariant. The converse is true for the proper time.
- 2.
As for many international terms in Astronomy, this acronym is derived from the French language.
- 3.
In the dynamics of multi-body systems, where the concept of augmented bodies is introduced, some authors define the center-of-mass of any constituting body in the usual way, whereas call the (instantaneous) center-of-mass of the augmented body as its barycenter. The interested reader could deepen such formidable concepts in excellent textbooks, e.g. [50] and [12] of Chap. 5. In any case, center of mass and barycenter should not be confused with the center of gravity, which depends on the gravitational field where the considered body is immersed.
- 4.
For chemical/electric, nuclear, or antimatter propulsion.
- 5.
Energy is required for power conditioning, propellant rate control, pre-heating, ion generation, confinement fields, etc.
- 6.
Field-free space is a strong idealization, considering the modern field theory implications. In our context, this means no fields are considered but the local propulsive thrust.
- 7.
With ZTM in SF, the four-momentum of a point-like object observed in IF equals the object’s energy in SF times the four-velocity of SF with respect to IF.
- 8.
It was generalized to four dimensions in tensorial form [28], Eq. (31), involving any exhaust type. This is because energy conservation and momentum conservation give different pieces of propulsion information, in general. These ones coincide only in the one-space + one-time case.
- 9.
The new emerging science was named Astronautics by J.H. Rosny [7].
- 10.
In the general (3-space + 1-time) case, the relationship (1.11) holds provided that T (SF)∥V.
- 11.
This is the acceleration that allows a body test to orbit about the Sun in exactly 1 year; it is equal to \(0.0059300835~\mathrm{m/s^{2}}\).
- 12.
This is one of the units, outside the SI, which are normally accepted for use with the SI. Other symbols for AU that one may find in scientific or popular books are ua, au or a.u.
- 13.
In the Eighties, many antiproton-nucleon annihilation relativistic mission concepts have been investigated; for some of them, pion-ejection systems were devised and analyzed in detail.
- 14.
In some envisaged relativistic missions, minimizing the propellant or the total energy spent by the power system does not give the same results.
- 15.
Thruster can be viewed as a device that channels energy into a beam of particles that are exhausted away from the rocket. Engine coincides with the collimator and its control system in the case of photon rocket.
- 16.
Of course, some scientific instruments can send data before reaching such distance.
- 17.
These numerical results have been carried out by the author specifically for this book.
- 18.
The ion propulsion community is used to call \(\tilde{U}_{e} /g_{0}\) the specific impulse, g 0 being the standard acceleration gravity value (9.80665 m s−2). It is normally expressed in seconds. Of course, gravity has nothing to do with the specific impulse concept; g 0 is only a scaling factor. As a consequence, the specific impulse should instead be reported as a speed.
- 19.
This set of independent quantities lends itself to be easily generalized for including secondary effects on trajectory stemming from the attitude control system.
- 20.
In real space designs, the current systems could be dealt with as either systems or sub-systems or sub-subsystems, depending on the design context. Here, we are using a few simple terms.
- 21.
Apart from a small amount of neutrinos, we may consider that the energy released by nuclear fission will eventually go all to heat.
- 22.
This value, comprehensive of the generator and thruster subsystems, is normally split into subsystem-peculiar values.
- 23.
This dimensionless parameter is a measure of the non-uniformity of the ion current density at the screen grid. If the current density distribution, as function of the radius, were rectangular, then it would be equal to 1, its maximum (and ideal) value. There is a dimensional parameter, called the perveance, which is characteristic of the ion accelerator subsystem. Two ion engines performing a given specific impulse with both the same propellant and accel-to-decel grid voltage ratio exhibit different thrusts if the product of these two perveance factors is different.
- 24.
US Space Nuclear Reactor Design.
- 25.
Once fixed the overall thrusting time, the dependence of the terminal speed on the single arc times is fairly weaker than the attitude angles, which here have been specified in the RVH frame of reference.
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Vulpetti, G. (2013). Some General Rocket Features. In: Fast Solar Sailing. Space Technology Library, vol 30. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4777-7_1
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