https:\/\/doi.org\/10.59332\/jbis-078-06-0216<\/a><\/b><\/p>\nIn this paper we give an assessment of the particle bombardment problem for interstellar spacecraft from dust in the\u00a0interstellar medium. We examine the minimum requirements for a set of fusion spacecraft designs under Project Icarus, a\u00a0successor to the 1970s Project Daedalus study. It is found that whilst protons and electrons may give rise to heating of the\u00a0spacecraft, the erosion of any shield material is dominated by dust grains. The interstellar dust grains are assumed to have\u00a0a matter density of 2.57 \u00d7 10-17 gcm-3 and the largest may be as large as 0.1 \u03bcm or 5 ng, assuming a typical solid density\u00a0of 3 gcm-3. Maximum erosion rates are predicted to be of order 3 \u00d7 10-5 gs-1 for the largest grains. Calculations suggest a\u00a0shielding mass for Project Icarus of around 1 tonne with a minimum thickness of 1 mm, will be sufficient to protect the\u00a0spacecraft against dust impacts during the cruise phase of the flight. However, a larger shield is recommended to account\u00a0for impacts occurring during entry into the stellar system prior to planetary encounters occurring, and to account for high energy charged particle penetration. This paper is a final contribution to the Project Icarus Study Group.<\/p>\n
Keywords: <\/b>Interstellar Studies, Fusion Propulsion, Project Daedalus, Project Icarus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":54669,"template":"","meta":[],"pwb-brand":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[56,59,3901],"product_tag":[],"class_list":["post-55118","product","type-product","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","product_cat-journal-of-the-bis","product_cat-papers","product_cat-2025-papers","first","instock","downloadable","virtual","purchasable","product-type-simple","czr-hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"brands":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bis-space.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/55118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bis-space.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bis-space.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bis-space.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bis-space.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"pwb-brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bis-space.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pwb-brand?post=55118"},{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bis-space.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=55118"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bis-space.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=55118"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bis-space.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=55118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}