Nasa reveals new details of radical 'proton power' system that could send spacecraft to the edge of the solar system in just 10 years

Nasa engineers have revealed new details of a radical new propulsion system that could slash the time it takes for spacecraft to reach interstellar space.

According to the Daily Mail, the system would interact with particles released by the sun, repelling protons to create thrust and achieve unprecedented speeds.

Researchers have said this could bring spacecraft to the heliopause in just 10 years – a feat that took the Voyager craft 35 years.

They hope to test their idea by 2020. 

“We could do the same type of mission as Voyager but within 10 or 12 years,” Bruce Wiegmann, and engineer in Marshall's Advanced Concepts Office and the principal investigator for the E-Sail, told theBBC. 

“We could get to Pluto in five or six years, half the time of the recent Dawn mission, and Jupiter in two years.”

The proposed concept is called the Heliopause Electrostatic Rapid Transit System (Herts) E-Sail, and works without built-in propellant.

Instead, the E-Sail would be boosted by solar wind to reach the heliopause – the edge of our solar system.

A slowly spinning spacecraft would deploy 10 to 20 electrically charged aluminium wires to create a massive 'E-Sail.' 

“You have long thin bare wires that are positively charged extending from a slowly rotating spacecraft,” said.

“The positively charged wires will repel the positively charged ions in the solar wind to push the spacecraft along – it's like the magnets we played with at school, magnets of the same polarity repel each other.”

Each wire would be just one millimetre thick but extend roughly 12 and a half miles in length, almost the equivalent of 219 football fields.

The E-Sail would repel the protons coursing through the solar wind, creating the thrust.

“The sun releases protons and electrons into the solar wind at very high speeds – 400 to 750 kilometers per second,' said Bruce Wiegmann, and engineer in Marshall's Advanced Concepts Office and the principal investigator for the HERTS E-Sail.

“The E-Sail would use these protons to propel the spacecraft.”

Researchers at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama have begun the tests which will continue for over two years.

These will determine the amount of protons deflected by the wires and the amount of electrons attracted to them.

The engineers will also conduct plasma testing, and improve models of the data for further development of the E-Sail. 

However, experts have said the plan has issues. 

“We're trying to prove the technology,” said Wiegmann, who aims to fly the first demonstration mission in the early 2020s. 

“We're also studying the physics so we know how much propulsive force the solar wind will produce.”

“Everything has to start someplace. 

The concept builds off an invention of Dr Pekka Janhunen of the Finnish Meteorological Institute, but researchers say there is still much to be done, and it will likely be at least 10 years before it can be put to actual use.

As its journey progresses, the effective area of the E-Sail would increase; at 1AU its effective area would be roughly 232 square miles, but at 5 AU this would cover more than 463 miles.

Typically, the energy of solar photons dissipates when a solar sail craft reaches the asteroid belt at 5 AU, the researchers explain, causing acceleration to stop.

But, it's thought that the E-Sail would continue to accelerate far beyond this point.

“The same concerns don't apply to the protons in the solar wind,' Wiegmann said.

'With the continuous flow of protons, and the increased area, the E-Sail will continue to accelerate to 16-20 AU – at least three times farther than the solar sail. This will create much higher speeds.”

When Nasa's Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause into interstellar space in 2012, it was nearly 35 years into its journey.

With this new method, a craft could achieve this in less than one-third of the time.

“Our investigation has shown that an interstellar probe mission propelled by an E-Sail could travel to the heliopause in just under 10 years,” he said.

“This could revolutionize the scientific returns of these types of missions.”

While the design is suited to carry spacecraft past the heliopause, the researcher said it also has applications for exploration in our own solar system.

“As the team studied this concept, it became clear that the design is flexible and adaptable,” said Wiegmann.

“Mission and vehicle designers can trade off wire length, number of wires and voltage levels to fit their needs – inner planetary, outer planetary or heliopause. The E-Sail is very scalable.”