The space plane – MAI students plan to extract helium-3 on Jupiter

January 23 the Ambassador of the Republic of Bulgaria Boyko Kotsev presented awards to the graduates of Moscow Aviation Institute Nedislav Veselinov and Vladislav Shishkin — the winners of the festival "From the Screw" in the MAKS-2015. The OSKBES MAI employee Alexey Sychev was awarded too. He also took part in the creation of the Russian-Bulgarian scientific project "Flight of aircraft in the atmospheres of the planets of the solar system."

The idea of ​​large-scale international project had a romantic origin — during summer evening gatherings on the balcony on the sea. Just like all brilliant ideas.

What is allowed to Jupiter

Vladislav Shishkin spent his summer holidays at his friend Nedislav Veselinov in the small Bulgarian town of Ahtopol. And even on vacation third years of the Department "Aircraft Design" talked about one thing – creation something new. Other ideas in the minds of the future of aircraft appeared over the years, but they were always not good enough. Then Nedislav, an astrophysicist at the first education, proposed to merge it with the aircraft. The solution lay on the surface — the plane flying in the atmospheres of the planets of the solar system.

Finally the guys have moved from words to action at the end of the fourth year after application to the festival MAKS-2015. By that time, Vladislav and Nedislav have already collected all the information and made several term papers on this topic. Many people worked on aircrafts of other planets, especially Mars, but Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were not attracted by researchers. Students of the department "Aircraft Design" were interested in denser atmosphere — in the tenuous Martian with a small force of gravity will soon fly the glider, not a plane.

Get the energy of the future

There have already been the attempts to fly somewhere far away the moon and Mars. For example the US "Galileo" explored Jupiter, "Cassini" — Saturn, "Gyugeyns" — Titan, the Soviet probe — Venus.

— Of course we have thoroughly studied all the data about Jupiter but they are still incomplete, — says Vladislav Shishkin. — Well, the probe fell once and showed the section of the atmosphere; some vehicles flew past and sent photos. A lot of thesis can be written on this subject — so much unexplored, undiscovered! MAI students came to the project from a practical point of view — or rather, with helium-3, "the fuel of the future" for fusion reactors. For example, for ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor — the world's first experimental fusion reactor) spectral analysis showed that on Jupiter has very much of it. Far more than the moon, for which resources there are production plans.

On Earth’s satellite more power and equipment will have to be used to dig the lunar soil. There are no such difficulties with the gas giant Jupiter, but you need to understand a helium-3 state there. And you should develop an extraction plan for fuel for the long term. 25 tons of it will provide the energy needs of our planet for a year.

Airborne

Implementation of flying over Jupiter is supposed to be divided into three stages, the first of which — the study of its atmosphere.

— For example, we will write the physical model for the upstream. And it won’t work for downstream, — says Vladislav Shishkin. — And even more it won’t work for the cyclone, storm or thunderstorm. Therefore, to begin with, we are launching a probe into Jupiter's atmosphere from stratostat. It should have small descend capsulas that at different points in the troposphere, stratosphere, thermosphere and exosphere (layers of Jupiter's atmosphere —. Approx) will throw off the sensors.

The second step is the launch of the uncontrolled aircrafts. The unpowered glider without will be delivered in the Jovian atmosphere by means of carrier rocket. It will follow the course of streams, but the wingspan, the materials and other construction components can be determined only after a thorough study of the atmosphere.

— Physics won’t change fundamentally, — assured Vladislav. — The coefficients in the equations will change because of more pressure, density, gravity ... But imagine appearance of the device is possible. The main task is a thorough study of the differences from the Earth's atmosphere.

Once the behavior of the glider in the deep layers of Jupiter's atmosphere is clear and predictable, you can start and run a handle airplane with a nuclear engine. The radiation of the planet won’t cause danger to it — electronics and other methods of protection from radiation are already known.

— Then it will be possible to look for Helium-3, — concludes Vladislav. — We won’t find — our descendants will do this. Now the main thing for us is to prove our project is feasible in principle.