Solar sail with superconducting circular current-carrying wire

Solar Sail Near-Optimal Circular Transfers with Plane Change

Near-minimum time interplanetary trajectories between circular orbits with different orbital planes are investigated. By assumption, the mission is carried out with a solar sail spacecraft, whose performance takes into account the optical characteristics of the sail film and the maximum temperature constraint. In an effort to obtain a general, albeit approximate, solution, the problem is tackle...

Comparing a current-carrying circular wire with polygons of equal perimeter: Magnetic field versus magnetic flux

Charge Density in a Current-Carrying Wire

Discussions of the force on a charged particle outside a current-carrying wire often assume that the wire is electrically neutral. This problem explores how this assumption is not quite correct. We give solutions both in the lab frame and in the rest frame of the conduction electrons, using both Maxwell’s equations and special relativity. We note that for current to flow in a resistive wire, th...

Accessing the Solar System With a Small Solar Sail

Solar sailing is a proposed means of space propulsion in which a reflective surface collects momentum from solar photons to accelerate a vehicle. The current trend within the solar sailing community is to increase sail size as solar sailing technologies advance, allowing for larger payloads and higher accelerations. However, with the miniaturization of modern payloads, sail sizes can be dramati...

Emergence of dissipative structures in current-carrying superconducting wires.

We discuss the emergence of a spontaneous temperature and critical current spatial modulation in current-carrying high-temperature superconducting wire. The modulation of the critical current along the wire on a scale of 3-10 mm forces a fraction of the transport current to crisscross the resistive interface between the superconducting film and normal metal stabilizer attached to it. This gener...