The British company Pulsar Fusion signed an agreement with the American company Princeton Satellite Systems to create a thermonuclear rocket engine and a rocket capable of reaching Mars in 30 days. The main tool in the work will be artificial intelligence, which will study the physics of the plasma in the engine and help optimize its design.
Pulsar Fusion is developing a rocket engine powered by plastic waste. But the main goal of the company was to create a thermonuclear rocket engine. The British, together with Princeton Satellite Systems, will be busy improving American developments, analyzing plasma physics in the Princeton field inverted configuration version 2 (PFRC-2) installation.
The PFRC facility was proposed at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in the early 2000s. It implements the idea of reverse configuration. The high-pressure thermonuclear plasma is trapped inside the engine by a magnetic trap, and cold fuel in the form of the same plasma (ions and electrons) flows around the hot core and is saturated with its energy, then ejected. tremendous speed through electromagnetic nozzles.
For over 20 years, Princeton Satellite Systems has specialized in a range of government grants, including funding from NASA. In the future, it is planned to create units PFRC-3 and PFRC-4. Second, it should get a synthesis reaction, and then a flying prototype creation process will be started.
The thermonuclear engine, which is the size of a minibus developed by the companies, will be able to accelerate the spacecraft to 223.5 km / h. At this rate, you can reach Titan (Saturn’s moon) in about three days or two months to Mars when it is closest to Earth. However, this is the maximum speed and it also takes time to accelerate and decelerate.
The fusion plant will also be able to generate electricity for onboard systems and working fuel can be drawn from dust or gas in space. Small amounts of helium-3 and deuterium will be required to initiate and maintain a fusion reaction that will not take up much space in the engine. Source