Chapter 450: Problems with Large Load Electromagnetic Propulsion System
After chatting with Weng Yunzong, Xu Chuan quickly found Wen Yuanhang, who was responsible for daily affairs management, and asked him to help arrange a meeting with Academician Yang Hong, the chief designer of the Tiangong Space Station.
Naturally, Wen Yuanhang attached great importance to what Xu Chuan told him. He quickly contacted the Science and Technology Institute, contacted Academician Yang Hong through the Science and Technology Institute, and then arranged the relevant itinerary.
Xu Chuan did not waste any time. After confirming the itinerary, he immediately took the high-speed train to Jiuquan Space Base.
Here, he met Academician Yang Hong, the chief designer of the Tiangong Space Station. He was a middle-aged man in his early fifties. He was not very tall, but he looked quite capable.
The whole person's style does not look like a scientific researcher, but more like a worker driving screws on a construction site.
"Academician Xu, welcome~"
Because of the prior communication from the Science and Technology Institute, Academician Yang Hong was waiting in the office this afternoon. After Xu Chuan arrived, he stood up with a warm smile, shook hands, and said hello.
"Hello, Academician Yang, I've taken the liberty to disturb your work." Xu Chuan greeted him with a polite smile.
"Hey, where are you talking? Academician Xu, you are a great hero of our country. Come on, please take a seat first." Yang Hong greeted warmly and boiled water to make tea himself.
Holding a cup of tea, after the two exchanged a few words, Xu Chuan also got straight to the point: "Academician Yang, I am here to disturb you this time. I mainly want to consult with you about some issues related to electromagnetic propulsion."
The Tiangong Space Station is an important goal in the "three-step" development strategy of China's manned space project. It is still in the construction stage, and Mr. Yang is naturally very busy with his design work, so I can spare some time to do other work with him.
Communication is also not easy.
"Please tell me." Seeing that the conversation was about business, Yang Hong also suppressed the smile on his face and took it seriously.
"That's right. I would like to inquire. If it can provide millions of kilowatt-hours of electrical energy, is there any suitable electric propulsion engine technology that can achieve a carrying capacity of 100 tons?"
Hearing this question, Yang Hong frowned and started thinking.
After a while, he raised his head, shook his head, and replied: "It's difficult, or almost impossible."
After a slight pause, Academician Yang continued: "In fact, in aerospace technology, in addition to chemical fuels, we have also been actively looking for alternative sources of space power to make space launches and spacecraft on-orbit operations more efficient and economical.
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"However, with current technology, chemical fuels are still our only option in the atmosphere."
"As for electric propulsion, to be honest, the current electric propulsion, apart from being used by satellites and space stations in outer space, cannot even push an egg up in the atmosphere."
"Take the Hall propulsion unit developed here for use in the Tiangong Space Station. Its design is the HET-5000 100-kilowatt high-power stage, with a designed operating power of 50 to 100kW and a thrust of 2 to 5 N."
"Used on the Tiangong in outer space, four such Hall thrusters are theoretically enough for the Tiangong to achieve all orbit changes and emergency operations."
"But when placed in the atmosphere, it can only carry an ordinary 500ml bottle of mineral water."
"Even the public data of the most advanced Hall electric thruster developed in the United States has reached 160kW, and its thrust does not exceed double digits."
"The gap between this level of thrust and the 100-ton level you require, Academician Xu, is really huge. This is no longer a problem that can be solved by providing sufficient electrical energy. There are too many difficult problems involved."
Hearing this answer, Xu Chuan couldn't help but frown.
To be honest, this answer was far from what he expected.
After thinking for a while, he asked: "Then what is the core problem of improving electromagnetic propulsion?"
Hearing this, Academician Yang Hong thought for a while and replied: "If we want to solve the problem of electric propulsion thrust, the core problem is undoubtedly the problem of thrust-to-weight ratio."
"In terms of technology, electromagnetic pushing has actually been maturely used in satellites, space stations and other equipment for more than ten years, but the development and improvement over the past few decades has not actually been great."
"If chemical fuel is used as a rocket propulsion engine, it is relatively easy to do from the structure to the engine. The fuel delivery system and control system are not complicated and can be realized with simple pipelines. The principle has not been shown from Goddard to V2 until now.
Changing.”
"But if it is an electric push, it must first consume a huge amount of electricity and release it in a short period of time."
"Take the Hall thruster I am currently studying as an example, because providing thrust requires a large amount of high-temperature and high-pressure gas to generate reaction force, and the rocket engine does not blow out xenon ions like a breeze like a satellite electric thruster. It is more violent.
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"This requires a more powerful magnetic field to accelerate xenon ions to tens of kilometers per second or even hundreds of kilometers per second."
"This is the first one, and the second one is the working fluid."
"No matter how large the specific impulse of electric propulsion is, it undoubtedly consumes working fluid."
"Currently, the working fluid of electric thrusters used on satellites in various countries is mainly xenon. Xenon is quite expensive and is known as the gold among gases. If it is only used for satellites to maintain their orbits or adjust their orbits,
A few kilograms of xenon can reach the sky."
"But if it is used for rocket launches or space shuttles, I honestly don't know how many tons of xenon are needed, and I can't calculate it. But what is certain is that the cost of each launch is undoubtedly quite expensive."
"In addition, a series of problems such as temperature and friction caused by electric propulsion during high-speed ejection are also difficult problems such as damage to the rear of the engine, electrode erosion, and increase in ionization temperature..."
Academician Yang Hong briefly described the problems of increasing thrust of electric propulsion engines. After listening to this, Xu Chuan started to think about it.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Although he has not studied aerospace technology much, Academician Yang's concise language still made him understand the core of the problem.
Judging from these problems, there are two to three core issues in solving the thrust problem of electric propulsion.
One is the strong magnetic field and electrostatic acceleration.
There is no doubt that in order to provide huge thrust through electromagnetic propulsion engines, it is certain to accelerate the ionized working fluid to extremely high levels.
This speed may be tens of kilometers per second, or it may be hundreds of kilometers per second, but there is no doubt that it can reach the unit of the speed of light.
Even if it is only one thousandth or even one ten thousandth of the speed of light, this is still a very scary value.
The second one is the working substance.
At present, the main working fluid of electric propulsion is xenon. Although he does not know the specific price of xenon, Academician Yang has said that it is not cheap, and I am afraid that it is indeed not cheap either.
So finding a cheap alternative is a must.
After all, to send tens of tons or even hundreds of tons of items into outer space, the amount of working fluid required will definitely not be small.
As for the third one, there are some other engine problems.
After thinking quietly for a while, Xu Chuan suddenly raised his head and asked: "Academician Yang, if I can solve the problems of magnetic field and working fluid, is it possible to realize this kind of electromagnetic propulsion engine?"
Hearing this, Yang Hong looked over in surprise and asked in surprise: "Solve the magnetic field and working fluid? How do you solve these two?"
Xu Chuan smiled and said: "Tell me first, on the basis of solving these two problems, is there any way to achieve a high-thrust electromagnetic propulsion system?"
Although he thinks that these two problems are almost impossible to solve at present, Yang Hong still thought about it: "If the magnetic field and working fluid can be solved, the thrust of electromagnetic propulsion will definitely be greatly improved. But I don't know how much it can be improved.
Legal judgment.”
After a pause, he looked at Xu Chuan and asked curiously: "So how are you going to solve the two problems of magnetic field and working fluid?"
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PS: Second update, please give me monthly tickets.