Thrust Measurement of Magnetoplasma Sail in Laboratory Experiment

Low-Thrust to Solar-Sail Trajectories: A Homotopic Approach

Identification of a quasiseparatrix layer in a reconnecting laboratory magnetoplasma.

The concept of quasiseparatrix layers (QSLs) has emerged as a powerful tool to study the connectivity of magnetic field lines undergoing magnetic reconnection in solar flares. Although they have been used principally by the solar physics community until now, QSLs can be employed to shed light on all processes in which reconnection occurs. We present the first application of this theory to an ex...

An Overview of the Star Thrust Experiment

The Field Reversed Configuration, FRC, is a closed field fusion confinement geometry with great potential to be used as a space propulsive device and power source. Present formation techniques are cumbersome and severely constrain the resultant FRC. An experiment is presently under construction to study the formation and sustainment of the FRC using a rotating magnetic field. If successful, thi...

Secondary Solar Reflection Thrust Effects on Non-planar Solar Sail Topologies

The classic first-order thrust approximation for solar sails is analytically extended to include the effects of secondary reflections and generalized in a practical Finite Element Model (FEM) based routine. Examination and inclusion of secondary reflection forces are shown to grow increasingly non-trivial as the deformation becomes more extreme. The approach taken herein does not address the “b...

Model Predictive Control of a Thrust-vectored Flight Control Experiment

Model predictive control (MPC) is applied to the Caltech ducted fan, a thrust-vectored flight experiment. A real-time trajectory generation software based on spline theory and sequential quadratic programming is used to implement the MPC controllers. Timing issues related to the computation and implementation of repeatedly updated optimal trajectories are discussed. Results show computational s...