Monday, February 1, 2021

Stationkeeping Lissajous

Let's bring some work here together: to stationkeep Lissajous with Ebrahimi's Alfvén drive.

The tightest Lissajous halo around SVL2, 1900 x 800 km, takes 1.213267 m/s... throughout one "year". Any rocket scientistengineer's aim is to cut the massratio in The Jerk's equation to near equality, that is 1. For that Ebrahimi promises exit velocity, which is the specific-impulse The Jerk demands, in range 50000-200000 m/s. The high range is, I don't think coïncidentally, about the same as the exit velocity of solar hydrogen.

Another read-out from The Jerk: the more often the SVL2 crew refuel Ebrahimi, the less fuel they must send her. Unfortunately from Earth the supply-runs are on the 583.92-day synodic period. I therefore hope for a crew down at SVL2 who can harvest some hydrogen [and helium?] from the Ionic Wind. With that: maybe refuel every 145.98-day quarter? That's a delta-V 0.4849 m/s.

I'll stick, for the sake of this crayon-scribble, to the Earth year. Math.Exp(1.213267 / 50000) for, I guess, the 100 kW energy. That should get a ratio of 1.0000606652. The 10 MW energy will carve that to 1.0000024265 as Ebrahimi ejects her ions faster. (Lightspeed is 299792000 so she's, you know, still nonrelativistic.)

I said I had a crew. That means life-support. Our International Space Station is 419.7 tonnes. If I had stationkept that at inner Lissajous around SVL2 for a full Earth year, and had 10 MW to play with: I know I started with a mass of 419701 kg. At 100 kW, 'twas 419725 kg. Over Venus I have a bias toward more energy, less mass. Fortunately by contrast with Mars outgoing I hope to beam a steady stream of Venus-tier energy over here. And here I'd add a couple more Ebrahimis, so's I can triple the mass with some kind of shield.

I don't know UPDATE 2/2: I can feed it solar hydrogen from a 1000 km2 net. One kilo, two weeks... in theory. In practice I wonder if I'm better off harvesting Venerean hydrogen - and oxygen - down in low-orbit, to - somehow - boost up the 9 km/s delta-V. UPDATE 2/4: Electromagnetic canal.

Whatever the ion wind's makeup and force, said wind will be transferring that much momentum to push my net out. This wind's speed and density affects stationkeeping in proportion to the Venus-facing area of the station... and inversely to its mass. The net might have to worry. Something like my triple-ISS can ignore it. The SVL2 station is simply too massive to sail The Currents Of Space, for good or for ill.

I also needs save propellant for the 280+90 m/s for the Hohmann home or, perhaps, for helping others'. For that, I don't have my power-cord for the necessary Alfvén; I expect a chemical (or nuclear!) burn.

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