WO2023087045 - PULSED PROPULSION FUSION SPACESHIP WITH AN EXTERNAL DRIVER SYSTEM BASED ON ACCELERATING MICROSHIPS FOR IGNITING THE FUSION PROCESS BY KINETIC IMPACT
National phase entry is expected:
Publication Number
WO/2023/087045
Publication Date
25.05.2023
International Application No.
PCT/AT2022/060406
International Filing Date
18.11.2022
Title **
[English]
PULSED PROPULSION FUSION SPACESHIP WITH AN EXTERNAL DRIVER SYSTEM BASED ON ACCELERATING MICROSHIPS FOR IGNITING THE FUSION PROCESS BY KINETIC IMPACT
[French]
VÉHICULE SPATIAL À PROPULSION NUCLÉAIRE PULSÉE POURVU D'UN SYSTÈME DE PILOTAGE EXTERNE BASÉ SUR L'ACCÉLÉRATION DE MICROVÉHICULES POUR ALLUMER LE PROCESSUS DE FUSION PAR IMPACT CINÉTIQUE
Applicants **
BOS GMBH
St. Margarether Straße 7a
7072 Mörbisch am See, AT
Inventors
BOCHMANN, Melanie
Adelheidstraße 34a
80796 München, DE
SCHLESINGER, Karl-Georg
St. Margarether Straße 7a
7072 Mörbisch am See, AT
Priority Data
A60286/2021
22.11.2021
AT
Application details
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International Searching Authority |
EPO
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| Applicant's Legal Status |
Legal Entity
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| Entry into National Phase under |
Chapter I
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| Translation |
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Quotation for National Phase entry
| Country | Stages | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| China | Filing | 2469 | |
| EPO | Filing, Examination | 25214 | |
| Japan | Filing | 593 | |
| South Korea | Filing | 575 | |
| USA | Filing, Examination | 31310 |
Total: 60161 USD
The term for entry into the National Phase has expired. This quotation is for informational purposes only
Abstract[English]
True development of space industrialization and space mining will crucially depend on the availability of large-scale transport possibilities on solar system scale distances. Spaceships with transport capacity from several thousand tons up to the scale of the largest supertankers and containerships with the ability to reach any solar system destination within several months would be needed for this. Chemical rockets cannot fulfill any of these criteria, and electric propulsion systems would be way too slow. Laser-driven sail ships could fulfill all the criteria, but the efficiency of the conversion of Laser energy into kinetic energy of the spaceship depends crucially on the speed of the ship (see Bae1 on "Efficiency Solar Sail"). The technology would reach efficiencies of 30-50% at relativistic speeds of 0.2-0.3c (see Fehler! Verweisquelle konnte nicht gefunden werden.), but there is no need to reach relativistic speeds for large scale in solar system transport. The energy investment would be much too high to make such a transport system economically viable. The needed speeds are on the order of 1000 km/s. At these speeds, the conversion of Laser energy into kinetic energy of the spaceship would drop below 1%. On the other hand, fusion rockets can ideally operate at the needed speed level. But they can not easily reach the mass levels of a supertanker since most conventional fusion concepts suffer from low thrust levels, and at the needed power output level for this range of mass would have to carry cumbersome driver systems. We propose to use efficient relativistic microships driven by a 50-100GW Laser system (as proposed in the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative2) as the optimal driver system for a fusion rocket. In this way, the driver system will become external to the spaceship, and its weight will no longer enter into the rocket equation. The spacecraft will only carry cartridges with the main fusion fuel. The cartridges will be mechanically detached from 1 Y. Bae, Prospective of Photon Propulsion for Interstellar Flight. Article in Physics Procedia, December 2012 2 P. Daukantas, Breakthrough Starshot, Optics and Photonics News, May 2017 the ship one at a time in predetermined intervals, resulting in a pulsed propulsion system. The relativistic microship will hit an ignitor plate at the cartridge (or in some incarnations might hit the backend of the cartridge without an ignitor plate) to trigger the fusion reaction. Crucially, the ignition reaction will be driven solely by the high kinetic energy of the relativistic microship and will then burn into the main fuel of the cartridge. The exploding cartridge leads to a momentum transfer to the spaceship by using a pusher plate, as is common in pulsed fusion propulsion concepts.