Combining Magnetic and Electric Sails for Interstellar Deceleration

The main benefit of an interstellar mission is to carry out in-situ measurements within a target star system. To allow for extended in-situ measurements, the spacecraft needs to be decelerated. One of the currently most promising technologies for deceleration is the magnetic sail which uses the deflection of interstellar matter via a magnetic field to decelerate the spacecraft. However, while the magnetic sail is very efficient at high velocities, its performance decreases with lower speeds. This leads to deceleration durations of several decades depending on the spacecraft mass. Within the context of Project Dragonfly, initiated by the Initiative of Interstellar Studies (i4is), this paper proposes a novel concept for decelerating a spacecraft on an interstellar mission by combining a magnetic sail with an electric sail. Combining the sails compensates for each technologys shortcomings: A magnetic sail is more effective at higher velocities than the electric sail and vice versa. It is demonstrated that using both sails sequentially outperforms using only the magnetic or electric sail for various mission scenarios and velocity ranges, at a constant total spacecraft mass. For example, for decelerating from 5% c, to interplanetary velocities, a spacecraft with both sails needs about 29 years, whereas the electric sail alone would take 35 years and the magnetic sail about 40 years with a total spacecraft mass of 8250 kg. Furthermore, it is assessed how the combined deceleration system affects the optimal overall mission architecture for different spacecraft masses and cruising speeds. Future work would investigate how operating both systems in parallel instead of sequentially would affect its performance. Moreover, uncertainties in the density of interstellar matter and sail properties need to be explored

Chasing Nomadic Worlds: A New Class of Deep Space Missions

Nomadic worlds, i.e., objects not gravitationally bound to any star(s), are of great interest to planetary science and astrobiology. They have garnered attention recently due to constraints derived from microlensing surveys and the recent discovery of interstellar planetesimals. In this paper, we roughly estimate the prevalence of nomadic worlds with radii of $100\,\mathrm{km} \lesssim R \lesssim 10^4\,\mathrm{km}$. The cumulative number density $n_>\left(>R\right)$ appears to follow a heuristic power law given by $n_> \propto R^{-3}$. Therefore, smaller objects are probably much more numerous than larger rocky nomadic planets, and statistically more likely to have members relatively close to the inner Solar system. Our results suggest that tens to hundreds of planet-sized nomadic worlds might populate the spherical volume centered on Earth and circumscribed by Proxima Centauri, and may thus comprise closer interstellar targets than any planets bound to stars. For the first time, we systematically analyze the feasibility of exploring these unbounded objects via deep space missions. We investigate what near-future propulsion systems could allow us to reach nomadic worlds of radius $> R$ in a $50$-year flight timescale. Objects with $R \sim 100$ km are within the purview of multiple propulsion methods such as electric sails, laser electric propulsion, and solar sails. In contrast, nomadic worlds with $R \gtrsim 1000$ km are accessible by laser sails (and perhaps nuclear fusion), thereby underscoring their vast potential for deep space exploration.Comment: 22 pages including "Highlights" page; accepted by Acta Astronautic