Here’s how space travel can get faster

HG Wells wrote a book on Mars, Tim Burton spoofed the red planet in a movie. But neither War of the Worlds nor Mars Attacks predicted that it will probably be humans who will first reach the fourth rock from the Sun.

If we indeed do that, part of the credit would go to the European Space Agency (ESA) which will soon conduct trials of a new plasma propulsion system that can send a spacecraft to Mars at four times the current speed, thus bringing down the current travel time of approximately one year to around three months. Called, Helicon Double Layer Thruster (HDLT), its full trial begins next month, according to Roger Walker, of ESA's Advanced Concepts Team.

The HDLT plasma propulsion system was discovered in 1999 by Christine Charles of Canberra’s Australian National University. This was a seminal find for the development of HDLT, which has no electrodes and no moving parts. Says Dr Charles, “It has two plasma layers, and each has differing electrical properties. This double layer behaves like a pair of virtual electrodes and rapidly accelerates the ions to supersonic speeds thereby generating thrust.”

Dr Walker's team wants to take this groundbreaking concept from a lab to reality. “If the tests succeed, HDLT could be a substitute for large and ambitious missions like a journey to Mars,” Walker told DNA. “The duration of the journey will be cut down by a fifth.”

Dr Pascal Chabert of the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique in Paris has been closely associated with the study of HDLT. He told DNA, “Deep space exploration would require plasma thrusters to drastically reduce the amount of propellant required. It normally takes a year to reach Mars when the red planet is at its closest orbit to earth. With HDLT, we could reach Mars in three months.”