Design of the Experimental Simulator of Magnetic Sails

To realize magnetic sails, momentum of the solar wind should be efficiently transferred to a spacecraft via magnetic field, which is produced around a spacecraft. In this paper, two important physical processes are addressed: 1) diffusive processes caused by plasma turbulence at the magnetospheric boundary around the spacecraft; and 2) field aligned current loops that will electrically connect the magnetospheric boundary and the spacecraft. The idea of the magnetic sails will be demonstrated by an experimental simulator, in which a fast plasma beam will penetrate into a dipole magnetic field. For that purpose, the two important physical processes should be scaled down to a small laboratory experiment in a space chamber. From the scaling considerations, the interaction can be scaled down if high-speed and high-density $(10^{19}m^{-3})$ plasma jet is used with 1-T-class magnetic field.