Researchers are working on a lightweight, flying saucer-style flying vehicle that can glide over the surface of the Moon and other airless objects such as asteroids. This vehicle will be powered by the electric field created by direct exposure to the Sun and its surrounding plasma. In the absence of an atmosphere, this sun exposure creates a charge that can lift dust more than a meter into the air, and it looks like it might be possible to harness that energy somehow.
The vehicle will be made of a material called Mylar, which becomes electrically charged when struck by the sun’s rays. Small ion beams will be used both to charge the vehicle and to increase the natural surface charge, opposing gravity.
“A self-rising vehicle doesn’t have to deal with wheels or moving parts,” says aerospace engineer Paulo Lozano of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). As long as you don’t have physical contact with the asteroid, you can easily navigate and research on it.”
Ion engines, called ionic-liquid ion sources, have previously been used to propel satellites through space. The vehicle’s primary fuel will be molten salt, which shoots out as a beam of nozzles when struck with an electrical charge.
In a laboratory experiment using ionic-liquid ion sources to generate an electrostatic force, the team was able to lift a palm-sized vehicle, about 60 grams, into the air. “Our design consumes very little power and generates very large voltages. The power requirement is very low so you can run it for as long as you want,” says Lozano.
The research was published in the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets.
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