EM Drive

[Filippe999]

Hello fellow Kerbalnouts!

I have risen from the dead to witness first hand the effect of the 1.0 release. Cant' even rememeber last time I played.

Well, to the point, I read an article about a theorized and tested EM Drive that uses electromagnetic resonance to push the qunatum vaccum away from the craft and generate thrust. Simply put, it's an engine that generates thrust without fuel, only electricity, and it generates way more thrust than an ion engine, might have read the article wrong, but in it, they specified about 0.4N/10KW. How awesome it would be to launch a probe and have it maneuver using only electricity! on the article they also mention RCS thrusters using the technology so no longer you'll need Mono thanks on your probes, just put a massive solar panel and you're fine:cool:.

As we know kerbals love to innovate.

Here's the article.

Thanks, let's hope my rockets still work:D

[xXIndestructibleEVAXx]

Meh. The science behind EmDrives is- questionable, to say the least. It's difficult to say whether they will ever be useful. I still have several doubts on whether they are actually doing anything, and it's not just some sort of interference. Mind you, it's never been tested in microgravity.

[Mipe]

Does that still leave you with "meh"?

[Andy81le]

Meh. The science behind EmDrives is- questionable, to say the least. It's difficult to say whether they will ever be useful. I still have several doubts on whether they are actually doing anything, and it's not just some sort of interference. Mind you, it's never been tested in microgravity.

Are you sure your 'meh' is up to date? Have a look here: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/

It shouldn't be too difficult to create something that resembles the EM drive. No fuel required, but electricity. Could consists of a power source (nuclear reactor, solar panels) plus the 'exhaust'.

Edit: Didn't see OP's link to the article.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Andy81le

[stibbons]

I'm not convinced it's currently feasible in real life.

But it would make an excellent KSP part.

[Andy81le]

But it would make an excellent KSP part.

Agreed!

[Filippe999]

I'm not convinced it's currently feasible in real life.

But it would make an excellent KSP part.

That's the Spirit

[xXIndestructibleEVAXx]

Are you sure your 'meh' is up to date? Have a look here: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/

It shouldn't be too difficult to create something that resembles the EM drive. No fuel required, but electricity. Could consists of a power source (nuclear reactor, solar panels) plus the 'exhaust'.

Edit: Didn't see OP's link to the article.

Still, we haven't tested them in microgravity. These forces might only work under the pressures that the surface provide. Even if they do work in space, they produce so little thrust that they would be practically useless, compared to other electrical engines.

[Andy81le]

Still, we haven't tested them in microgravity. These forces might only work under the pressures that the surface provide. Even if they do work in space, they produce so little thrust that they would be practically useless, compared to other electrical engines.

Although their thrust might be low, they would produce it continuously, resulting in constant acceleration of a craft. Over time this can result in very high velocities, as they wrote in the article, 10% of the speed of light is possible. They also note, that a trip to mars would be possible in a very small amount of time, shorter than probes currently need. So, they are potentially very useful!

[Lord Aurelius]

I read that same article and I was thinking the same thing about getting an EM drive for KSP. Writing a part config for such an engine is dead simple (KSP already has everything needed), we just need a model for the part and some playtesting to balance it. If someone provides a model I could potentially write some configs for it.

[enneract]

... they produce so little thrust that they would be practically useless, compared to other electrical engines.

If it works in microgravity, the current tests indicate that it will produce more thrust than a solar sail. Solar sail's thrust is useful, even if minuscule, because it is constant with no need for reaction mass. Likewise, EMDrive will be more useful, because it is constant with no need for reaction mass.

[Nothalogh]

This would be a good addittion to Nertea's Near Future Propulsion

[billkerbinsky]

This would be a good addittion to Nertea's Near Future Propulsion

It's pretty clear from reading the Near Future thread that Nertea isn't interested, so it's not going to happen there. The repeated drive-by requests on the thread for an EM Drive are getting annoying.

Another EMdrive thread pointed at Low Profile Misc Engines as including an electromagnetic engine.

[Nansuchao]

You can find one in the Interstellar Mod. The upgraded version of the Plasma Thruster is a Quantum Vacuum Thruster. It needs only energy, a huge amount of energy for a small thrust, but not other propellant at all.

[Galane]

Build a probe with one, give it an RTG with a big slug of plutonium wrapped with the latest in Peltier technology, launch conventionally to space then aim where you want to go.

Could send an IMAX camera and 4K digital cameras to Mars, film the planet in full color instead of the 1960's methods they still use of a monochrome camera and color filters. With the speeds available to a constant thrust drive it would be feasible to just bring the film and massive digital files back to Earth orbit to be offloaded and transmitted rather than trying to squeeze data slowly across long distance radio links.

Or how about using the EM drive to position high speed laser communication relays around the solar system so that probes using the drive would be able to go anywhere and send massive amounts of data back to Earth.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

Are you sure your 'meh' is up to date? Have a look here: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/

It shouldn't be too difficult to create something that resembles the EM drive. No fuel required, but electricity. Could consists of a power source (nuclear reactor, solar panels) plus the 'exhaust'.

Edit: Didn't see OP's link to the article.

Please be aware of the following;

nasaspaceflight.com is not NASA.

NASA hasn't actually published the results in a peer reviewed way yet. They're essentially preliminary findings.

The "thrust" almost approaches 0.2lb for a kW if you use superconductors (which will require cryogenics and more power).

No proffered explanation has survived specific tests. It may turn out to be working with Earth's magnetic fields or something silly like that. Thye put a bucket load of electrical juice into those tests and got only a small bit of push out.

The mod would be .... easy. But you'd need an electricity source.

[Sean Mirrsen]

EMDrive would make for a terrible KSP part. Just as it would revolutionize space travel IRL, so it would utterly break any semblance of fairness and balance in KSP. Infinite dV at less power cost than an Ion Thruster - because that's what the EMDrive as-proposed puts out. It would be a boring cheat engine, about the same as you'd get if you took a PB-ION powered craft and turned on infinite fuel.

I really want the EMDrive to work as advertized IRL, for the exact same reason I really don't want it to become a part of KSP.

[Nothalogh]

EMDrive would make for a terrible KSP part. Just as it would revolutionize space travel IRL, so it would utterly break any semblance of fairness and balance in KSP. Infinite dV at less power cost than an Ion Thruster - because that's what the EMDrive as-proposed puts out. It would be a boring cheat engine, about the same as you'd get if you took a PB-ION powered craft and turned on infinite fuel.

I really want the EMDrive to work as advertized IRL, for the exact same reason I really don't want it to become a part of KSP.

So make it summon the Kraken a third of the time

[TiktaalikDreaming]

EMDrive would make for a terrible KSP part. Just as it would revolutionize space travel IRL, so it would utterly break any semblance of fairness and balance in KSP. Infinite dV at less power cost than an Ion Thruster - because that's what the EMDrive as-proposed puts out. It would be a boring cheat engine, about the same as you'd get if you took a PB-ION powered craft and turned on infinite fuel.

I really want the EMDrive to work as advertized IRL, for the exact same reason I really don't want it to become a part of KSP.

I've only just started looking at this, this time round. Last time the data suggested ........ quite strongly. They tested in a vacuum chamber that the paper described in great length, except for the bit where it was turned off. The measurements were at the far extreme of what their instruments could detect, and it was all fairly unconvincing and quite frankly energy hungry for a few nano-Newtons.

This time round they found capacitors that work in a vacuum and so could start up the vacuum chamber.

But, the numbers are still tiny, Other parts of NASA don't believe them, the authors frequently get ahead of themselves, there's still no peer review, they spend a big chunk of their "paper" on wild speculation on how to use the device, and get the numbers wrong in that.

Colour me suspicious.

[Engineer of Stuff]

This might of been said before, but you could just edit the ion engine to have those properties.

[SpaceLaunchSystem]

Meh. The science behind EmDrives is- questionable, to say the least. It's difficult to say whether they will ever be useful. I still have several doubts on whether they are actually doing anything, and it's not just some sort of interference. Mind you, it's never been tested in microgravity.

Agreed.

P.S. In case you didn't know, your sig is a

. Edited May 5, 2015 by SpaceLaunchSystem

[davebailey]

This might of been said before, but you could just edit the ion engine to have those properties.

...Except for the Xenon requirement. EmDrive is electric only.

"No, no, no, no. This sucker's electrical, but I need a nuclear reaction to- to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity I need."  Dr. Emmett Brown ("Doc Brown"), Back to the Future

[Earthpulse]

Source: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=37642.2540

SECOND GENERATION EMDRIVE PROPULSION APPLIED TO SSTO LAUNCHER AND INTERSTELLAR PROBE

Roger Shawyer C.Eng.MIET.FRAeS

SPR Ltd, United Kingdom

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

In an IAC13 paper the dynamic operation of a second generation superconducting EmDrive thruster was described.

A mathematical model was developed, and in this paper, that model is used to extend the performance envelope of the technology.

Three engine designs are evaluated. One is used as a lift engine for a launch vehicle, another as an orbital engine for the launcher, and a third as the main engine for an interstellar probe.

The engines are based on YBCO superconducting cavities, and performance is predicted on the basis of the test data obtained in earlier experimental programmes.

The Q values range from 8 x 10^7 to 2 x 10^8 and provide high specific thrusts over a range of accelerations from 0.4 m/s^2 to 6 m/s^2.

The launch vehicle is an “all-electric†single stage to orbit (SSTO) spaceplane, using a 900 MHz, eight cavity, fully gimballed lift engine.

A 1.5 GHz fixed orbital engine provides the horizontal velocity component.

Both engines use total loss liquid hydrogen cooling.

Electrical power is provided by fuel cells, fed with gaseous hydrogen from the cooling system and liquid oxygen.

A 2 Tonne payload, externally mounted, can be flown to Low Earth Orbit in a time of 27 minutes.

The total launch mass is 10 Tonnes, with an airframe styled on the X37B, which allows aerobraking and a glide approach and landing.

The full potential of EmDrive propulsion for deep space missions is illustrated by the performance of the interstellar probe.

A multi-cavity, fixed 500 MHz engine is cooled by a closed cycle liquid nitrogen system.

The refrigeration is carried out in a two stage reverse Brayton Cycle. Electrical power is provided by a 200 kWe nuclear generator.

The 9 Tonne spacecraft, which includes a 1 Tonne science payload, will achieve a terminal velocity of 0.67c and cover a distance of 4 light years, over the 10 year propulsion period.

The work reported in this paper has resulted in design studies for two Demonstrator spacecraft.

The launcher will demonstrate the long-sought-for, low cost access to space, and also meet the mission requirements of the proposed DARPA XS-1 Spaceplane.

The probe will enable the dream of an interstellar mission to be achieved within the next 20 years.

[FreeThinker]

On 3-5-2015 at 10:17 PM, Nansuchao said:

You can find one in the Interstellar Mod. The upgraded version of the Plasma Thruster is a Quantum Vacuum Thruster. It needs only energy, a huge amount of energy for a small thrust, but not other propellant at all.

Don't forget it also produces a lot of Waste Heat.

Edited March 21, 2016 by FreeThinker

[Rushligh]

KSPI-E has an actual quantum vacuum engine, however it produces so much heat it's virtually unusable considering how much thrust it makes and electricity it uses.

you could just take a stock Xenon EM engine and throw the ratios out of wack, implement tweak scale, etc, etc.

you could also look into Solaris Hypernotics; they use "Virtual Particle" technology which is supposedly similar. it's also a bit more stock-alike friendly because their engines use LF/LFOX and not Interstellar Fuel switch... so no mile long dropdown menus.