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Feasibility study of a mission to Sedna – Nuclear propulsion and solar sailing

(arxiv.org)
200 points speckx | 1 comments | 01 Jul 25 14:08 UTC | HN request time: 0.206s | source
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pavel_lishin ◴[01 Jul 25 14:46 UTC] No.44434403[source]▶
> Sedna is expected to pass through the perihelion of its orbit in 2075--2076 and then move again away from the Sun. Considering the distances involved, a mission targeting the object would need to be launched "relatively" soon, especially if using conventional propulsion systems, which could require up to 30 years of deep-space travel.

Sedna's perihelion is ~76 AU - more than twice as far as Pluto, which took New Horizons nearly a decade to reach.

Sedna's apehelion is over 500 AU.

> The Direct Fusion Drive rocket engine is under development at Princeton University Plasma Physics Laboratory

Is it ... is it actually working? How close are they? And even if they get it to work next year, will it be something well-engineered & reliable enough to send it into space for 10 years and expect it to work?

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1. pfdietz ◴[01 Jul 25 15:00 UTC] No.44434556[source]▶
It's a scheme based on rotating magnetic field drive (RMF) of field reversed configurations. The claim is that they can preferentially accelerate and recover energy from 3He ions, greatly reducing DD fusion and associated neutrons. I question the recovery part (how is the entropy that is introduced by ion-ion collisions removed?), but do not have the expertise to fully evaluate the claim.

In any case, it certainly cannot be ready next year, and would require large amounts of 3He.