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'Acceleration without fuel:' Revolutionary superconducting thruster harnesses Earth's magnetic field in 1st orbital test (www.space.com)

submitted 16 hours ago by Delta_V@lemmy.world to c/space@mander.xyz

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..."Once you have super-conducting technology available in space, you can then create very strong magnetic fields and you can use them for various use cases," he said. "You can accelerate things in space very fast or change the trajectory of a satellite completely without fuel."...

"When we go to space, we get hurt by radiation, and these superconducting magnets can create umbrellas of magnetic fields around the spacecraft to protect the interior," said Arshavsky. "So we can shield people in space from that radiation."...

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[–] applebusch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

this is for applying torque to the spacecraft, not generating thrust. these are just magnetorquers, which have been a thing for a while. the only thing new here is that they use superconducting magnets, which i assume just means they can more efficiently create magnetic fields. its cool but its not really a game changing development, more a refinement on an existing technology. science journalism has to make everything sexy for clicks though...

[–] Delta_V@lemmy.world 0 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Spin can be converted into linear motion by mechanically moving the center of mass of the system.

Imagine an Olympic hammer toss but the hammer is attached to the thrower with a 20 meter rope. The thrower lets go, and then when the hammer reaches the end of the rope, they get pulled in that direction.

A similar effect can be achieved with a weight on a track. Or two tanks of fluid, one on either end of a barbell shaped device, with a pump to move the fluid between them.