A Plasma Aerocapture and Entry System for Manned Missions and Planetary Deep Space Orbiters

A plasma Magnetoshell can enable a wealth of large scale inner planetary missions and deep space planetary orbiters. Aerocapture and aerobraking use aerodynamic drag in a planetary atmosphere in order to decelerate and shed velocity from a planetary transfer orbit. Aerobraking systems have been shown to dramatically reduce the mass and cost of interplanetary orbiters. Aerocapture systems use a high temperature ceramic Aeroshell and thermal protection system (TPS) to extend those benefits to allow not only orbit lowering, but injection orbit capture as well. Mission studies have shown the Aerocapture is a dramatically enabling technology for interplanetary science and manned missions and critical for the future of NASA space travel. The Magnetoshell aerocapture deploys a magnetic field filled with a magnetized plasma. It is interaction of the atmosphere with this plasma that supplies a significant impediment to atmospheric flow past the spacecraft, and thereby producing the desired drag for braking. The plasma based Magnetoshell being developed in this program holds the potential to perform the desired braking with significantly increased drag and control while reducing mass. Most importantly, as the drag can be varied dynamically this technology significantly lowers the risk involved with aerocapture thereby making interplanetary aerocapture possible without detailed a prior knowledge of a planet's atmosphere. In Phase I a full system was designed for Neptune and Mars missions. This analysis showed that a 200 kg, 9 m Magnetoshell provides Neptune aerocapture for a 21 km/s injection with a peak force of 150 N. For a manned Martian aerocapture, a 21 meter Magnetoshell can be developed to provide aerocapture for a 60 metric ton payload. A transient analytic model was developed evolving the radial plasma parameters for a variety of plasma, neutral, and magnetic parameters. Finally, a stationary 2 meter argon Magnetoshell was fully demonstrated and a 1000:1 increase in aerodynamic drag was found.