INVITASJON TIL MØTE
Tirsdag  24. mars 2009,  kl. 19:00
Nansensenteret på Marineholmen,  Thormøhlensgate 47

 
Propulsion of unmanned spacecraft by solar wind - a new invention
 

Foredrag ved: 
Dr. Pekka Janhunen, Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki

Transferring spacecraft easily around the solar system without using fuel is a dream that may
soon come true. The Electric Sail was invented in Finland in 2006. It uses thin, long and charged
tethers for capturing the momentum of the natural solar wind plasma stream to produce controllable
thrust for a spacecraft. Implementation of the electric solar wind sail requires only moderately
advanced technology and according to estimates, its efficiency should beat existing propulsion
methods (chemical rockets and ion engines) by a large margin. The presentation is a status report
of the development of the Electric Sail, space testing plans and its potential applications for solar
system exploration and asteroid resource utilisation in the future.