Revolutionizing space exploration
Highlights in Helsinki, 31.7.2015
Sini Merikallio,
Finnish Meteorological Institute
Welcome to
Finnish
Meteorological
Institute
Dynamicum was built in
2005
~ 600 workers
Marine, arctic, space
weather, space weather,
climate, air quality…
3.8.2015
2
Sini Merikallio
@fmi.fi
Waterbear (Tartigrada)
www.bbc.co.uk
SPACE
Space
Beyond
Could we tap this energy somehow?
Picture: Jouni Jussila
Sun is spitting charged particles in all
directions at speeds of 400 km/s.
This is called Solar
Wind
400 km/s, hmmmh…
Could we tap this energy somehow?
Picture: Jouni Jussila
Back to basics!
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Like charges repel
Opposite charges attract
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600 AD Thales of Miletus wrote of static electricity
Lets put a charged wire in the solar wind!
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- Solar Wind
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acceleration
~20
kV
Why wire? It’s light weigth and easy to manage.
How much wire do we need?
~0.5 mN/km of wire 
2000 km of wire will produce:
1 Newton
 Hundred 20 km wires
corresponds to the weight of
one small apple
(on Earth’s surface).
In free space it is a bit different…
If that apple was
pushing your
car…
…in free space your
car would after a
year go 31 km/s or
110 000 km/h
KIM - 1
(For SUV’s 54 000 km/h)
That’s what constant acceleration with no fuel
consumption can do! Big inventions are often simple.
Freedom from launch windows
Photo: ESA
Sini Merikallio, Finnish Meteorological Institute
but…
Mess?
Weight?
?
2000 km of wire,
how do we manage that?
Use rotation to deploy the wires!
Centrifugal force
keeps wires straight
Wires do not need to be
thick,
25 - 50 μm is enough
Whole system is
less than 100 kg!
E-sail was invented here in 2006 by Pekka Janhunen
Novel way to travel in space by using solar wind.
Patented in several countries.
1.7 M€ EU FP7 project developed the key
technologies in 2011 - 2013
NIAC
500 000 $
Micrometeoroids everywhere!
2000 km of tether needed 
micrometeorite risk
Picture: Ryan Thompson, 2012
Tethers
• Tethers from wires!
• Helsinki University has a tether factory running, 70
meters of 2-wire tether produced.
- 100 m of E-sail tether
- to be launched in 2015
Photo: Aalto-1 team
Sini Merikallio, Finnish Meteorological Institute
Usages
Jupiter
5.2 AU from the Sun
Payload
Travel time
600 kg 1.0 yr.
1600 kg 2.5 yr.
Pluto
New Horizons took 9 years to Pluto;
E-sail could get us there in 6!
Asteroid touring
Asteroidi kiertoajelu
Same could be achieved with
100 000 kg of chemical
propellant, or 2000 kg of
solar panels…
100 kg E-sail gives 300 MNs in ten years
 1000 kg spacecraft will acquire 300 km/s ∆V!
Also bigger rocks do hit Earth occasionally…
1908 Tunguska, Siberia
Any chance of saving the day?
• E-sail could deflect 3 milj. kg. asteroid in ten years.
Masses attract – GRAVITY
M
m
Gravity tractor
Works for all kinds of asteroids.
Tractor mass could be mined from the asteroid
itself.
Mining potential?
Water,
metals,
methane
…
Continuous manned Mars
presence
Supporting manned Mars travel
H20  LH2/LOX
Asteroid mining
Sini Merikallio, Finnish Meteorological Institute
Only 15 years away?
.
Sini Merikallio, Finnish Meteorological Institute
Designing space technology
Rosetta
Is the surface hard?
Or soft?
European Space Agency – ESA
Euroopan avaruusjärjestö
1994: Finland becomes ESA's 14th Member State
2004: Rosetta launch
Landing on an Unkown Comet
Anchoring Harpoons with Heads for Hard and Soft Material
Landing
12th of
November,
2014
after 10 years of
space flights and
20 years of
preparations!
Picture: Sini Merikallio