Plasma engine can take the trip Mars

A consolidated scientific laboratory in the Costa Rica more than tested during three uninterrupted hours a plasma engine, an advance for an eventual manned trip Mars, informed in this Wednesday one of its responsible ones. The engine was on in the month passed in the Ad laboratory Astra Rocket and obtained to remain steady three hours for more than, with temperatures around the 50 a thousand degrees Celsius, said the director of the Ad Astra Costa Rica, Ronald Chang. The Ad Astra Rocket, company of the costarriquenho astronaut Franklin Chang, functions in the locality of Libéria, 250 km to the north of the capital of the Costa Rica. After this experience, is foreseen in next December that the plasma engine is tested in a chamber the vacuum in the Ad Astra Houston, for after that initiating the construction of an engine that serves to move satellites and to stabilize space stations with a minimum cost in comparison with the current ones. The objective is that, inside of some years, it will be possible to launch a ship manned for Mars, where, with an engine of this type, would arrive in less than 40 days. With the current systems of propulsion, beyond the high economic cost of the mission, the passage would take two years. “We obtain to improve substantially what we had reached in December”, said Ronald Chang, brother of the astronaut. In passed December, the scientists commanded for Chang had obtained to keep a plasma detonation during two minutes, being marked the beginning of the construction of an engine. Chang detached the capacity of the laboratory and the costarriquenhos scientists in keeping during some hours the steady detonation of the plasma. The Ad Astra esteem that, in next December, it will be possible to go off the archetype of the engine in a chamber of vacuum in the United States, and success will be had, would construct an engine to test it in International the Space Station (ISS, in the acronym in English) in 2009 or 2010. The rockets based on chemical products burn the fuel and the gases are expelled stop backwards in great amounts. This provokes a strong acceleration very, but in few minutes tons of fuel are consumed. The plasma engines, in contrast, banish only some íons (private atoms of an electron and with electric load), but more than the 55 a thousand Km/h. the superior speed of exit compensate, in part, the very small mass of ejected material, what it increases the efficiency. However, the plasma engine has a very small acceleration, the point to become it useless to take off of a planet. In contrast, he is ideal for an interplanetary trip, from the orbit of a celestial body and where already the atmospheric friction does not exist. According to scientists, the plasma engine is composed of three magnetic cells: a plasma source, a “superfeeder” that use electromagnetic waves and one called magnetic nozzle. “The plasma source is constituted of the main neutral gas injection (typically light hydrogen or other gases) to be transformed into plasma and in the ionization system”, it informed the Ad Astra. Later, the “superfeeder” uses electromagnetic waves to energize still more the plasma and to reach the desired temperature, and the “magnetic nozzle” transforms, finally, the energy of the plasma in impulse. Franklin Chang, of 57 years, is mechanical engineer and doctor in nuclear engineering. During its stay in NASA as astronaut, it he made seven space trips. It left the American space agency in 2005 to dedicate itself to the dream to develop the plasma engine. The trip Mars is planned has some years. But, “it could be carried through in 20 years, is not for the immediate future”, contemporizou Ronald Chang. AFP