Magnetic sail

A magnetic sail or magsail is a proposed method of spacecraft propulsion which would use a static magnetic field to deflect charged particles radiated by the Sun as a plasma wind, and thus impart momentum to accelerate the spacecraft. A magnetic sail could also thrust directly against planetary and solar magnetospheres.

History

The magnetic sail was proposed by Dana Andrews and Robert Zubrin working in collaboration in 1988. At that time, Andrews was working on a concept to use a magnetic scoop to gather ions to provide propellant for a nuclear electric ion drive spacecraft, allowing the craft to operate in the same manner of a Bussard ramjet, but without the need for a proton-proton fusion propulsion drive. He asked Zubrin to help him compute the drag that the magnetic scoop would create against the interplanetary medium. Zubrin agreed, but found that the drag created by the scoop would be much greater than the thrust created by the ion drive. He therefore proposed that the ion drive component of the system be dropped, and the device simply used as a sail. Andrews agreed, and the magsail was born. The two then proceeded to elaborate their analysis of the magsail for interplanetary, interstellar, and planetary orbital propulsion in a series of papers published from 1988 through the 1990s.