ISS Space Plasma Laboratory: An ISS instrument package for investigating the opening/closing of solar and heliospheric magnetic fields

摘要

We describe a proposed laboratory-experiment research program that will answer the fundamental question: What is the role of reconnection in opening and closing the solar magnetic field? While attacking this question, we will also address the most important, longstanding questions on magnetic reconnection, in all contexts: What determines the rate of reconnection, and whether or not it is bursty? How is the released energy partitioned between thermal, kinetic, and particle? Of course, it seems completely contradictory to use a laboratory experiment to study an open system, because so far all laboratory plasmas have very solid walls. The pioneering feature of our program is that the experiments will be performed on the International Space Station (ISS). Only by going into space can we obtain the open domain that is absolutely essential for studying the observed solar/heliospheric phenomena. We describe a research program that will provide the instrumentation infrastructure, modeling and solar data expertise and initial scientific understanding required to develop the privately funded Aurora electric propulsion package with its VASIMR~® VF-200 high powered plasma source into a wall-less, orbiting ISS Space Plasma Laboratory (ISPL) national facility. The VAriable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR~®) is a high power electric spacecraft propulsion system, capable of I_(sp0/thrust modulation at constant power [E. A. Bering, HI, et al., "Observations of single-pass ion cyclotron heating in a transsonic flowing plasma," Phys. Plasmas, 17, 043509, doi: 10.1063/1.3389205, (2010).]. The VASIMR~® uses a helicon source to generate plasma. The plasma is leaked though a strong magnetic mirror to a second stage. In the second stage, the plasma is energized by a process that uses left hand polarized slow mode waves launched from the high field side of the ion cyclotron resonance. The single pass ion cyclotron heating (ICH) produces a substantial increase in ion velocity. Ad Astra Rocket Company (AARC) is planning to fly a plasma rocket experiment as a major element of the company's "Aurora" electric power and propulsion test platform on the ISS in 2014. The Aurora platform will support a dual-jet magnetic quadrupoie 200 kW version of the VASIMR'5 plasma rocket (the VF-200). It will consist of two 100 kW parallel plasma engines with opposite magnetic dipoles, resulting in a near zero-torque magnetic system. The system will be available for basic plasma physics research in parallel with the testing of the VF-200 engine performance as a high power electric propulsion system. The Aurora package would thus become a National Plasma Physics Laboratory (the ISPL) suitable for plasma physics studies in an open, wall free near-Earth orbital laboratory environment. An ISS arm deployed instrument package similar to the Plasma Diagnostics Package used on STS-3 in conjunction with the OSS-1 experiment and STS-51F in conjunction with Spacelab 2 has been proposed to NASA. The Aurora Plasma Diagnostics Package (APDP) will carry Langmuir probes, an RPA, dc magnetometer, plasma wave detectors, Faraday cups, electrostatic analyzers, solid state energetic particle telescope and Ar II and broadband imagers. The studies that will be performed on this revolutionary facility will not only provide ground-truth experimental answers to the questions above, but undoubtedly discover new and unexpected plasma behavior in the unique environment of the ISPL, leading to new understanding of the Sun and Heliosphere.