Scenario

Chandrayaan discovers water on moon!

Being one of the biggest finds in the history of space exploration, this marks a major leap for the Indian Space Program. It is expected to trigger another series of moon missions and start a serious hunt for life in outer space. Now it's your chance to rise to the occasion and play a part in taking this discovery one step further.

Acting to the situation, let's say ISRO has started a new project, called ‘Next Generation Propulsion Systems’ (NGPS) aimed at producing propulsion technologies for the future without chemical fuels. Their first assignment is to bring water ice back from the moon. However, the non-chemical propulsion technologies available today are neither fully developed nor compatible with each other, so the quest has begun to rope in developmental models on new ideas. New conceptual designs with technology feasibly accomplished within the next 10 years are needed. Can the search stop at you?

The Challenge

The challenge is to design a non-conventional propulsion system for the NGPS and that too between the range of LEO (Low Earth Orbit) and Moon’s orbit (about 100 km). Now, for such a system, the energy requirement and how effectively one can use it is the most critical issue. So on the same lines we define the basic subsystems of a typical propulsion system as raw energy source, conversion devices and the mechanism of propulsion. What you need to do is propose an innovation in ANY ONE of these subsystems as follows:

• Powering the propulsion system | Generate 'x' kW of energy (x>=1).
• Transforming energy | Assuming a source, transform energy into a form which directly interfaces with the propulsion mechanism.
• Propulsion Mechanism | Innovate!
  
  

Event

• The event is a 2-day poster session to be held during Conscientia 2010.
• The full proposals along with abstracts must be e-mailed to the organizers in the specified format on the date specified.
• The proposals will be scrutinized by the judges as a preliminary review and 5 final entries will be selected. The judges will point out and comment on the shortcomings in the selected entries, which will have to be corrected by the teams.
• The selected teams will have to make a poster in the format specified and present it during the poster session at IIST on the specified date.

Your proposal should

• be a conceptual design based on engineering disciplines and using technologies which have at least been laboratory tested.
• not violate the fundamental laws of nature.
• explain how it is better than the existing models.
• be feasible within the next 10 years.
• be based on engineering logic.

Rules

• A team may consist of a maximum of 3 members.
• The full proposals along with abstracts must be e-mailed to the organizers in the specified format to the email address mentioned here with the subject "PROPULSION GENNEXT PROPOSAL". Do not forget to mention your names, contact numbers and Conscientia 2010 Registration IDs in your entry.
• Your proposal will be disqualified if found to be a direct reproduction of an existing model.
• 15 teams will be selected for presenting their posters at Conscientia, based on the proposals.
• The selected teams will have to make a poster in the specified format and present it during the poster session.
• At least one member of the selected team must be present at the time of the event at IIST.
• The formats for the proposal and poster are as follows:
  The Proposal
  
  • Abstract (minimum 300 words)
  • Introduction to the area chosen
  • Basic design with diagrams
  • Elaborate mechanism
  • Prove your innovation by drawing comparisons
  • Conclusion
  • Complete References (mandatory)
  Poster
  
  • Size: A1
  • Must contain:
    • Abstract of the paper
    • Design and mechanism with all conclusions
    • Names of all members of the team with e-mail ids.
• For queries, clarifications and submissions, contact vihang[at]conscientia[dot]co[dot]in.

Eligibility
Open to all college students with valid ID cards.

Evaluation

The review and evaluation will be done by a panel of judges. Their decision will be final under all circumstances. The composition of the jury is as follows:

Panel Head
N K Gupta
Deputy Director, Propulsion Research and Studies,
Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), ISRO

Members

• Lazer T Chitilapilly
  Project Director, Air Breathing Propulsion Project, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), ISRO
• G Nageswaran
  Divisional Head, Reusable Launch Vehicle Propulsion System, LPSC

The criteria for judgement and evaluation are broadly:

Preliminary Round
The focus here will be on clarity of concept and expression. The approach through which you have progressed to innovate will be more important.

Final Round

• Innovation
• Improvement in performance

Important Dates

15 February 2010
Deadline to submit proposal

20 February 2010
Finalists to be announced. Review comments on selected proposals will be published on the website.

28 February 2010
Deadline to submit soft copy of the posters by the selected teams

4 to 7 March 2010
The finale!

Resources

Propulsion GenNext requires you to make a design of a propulsion system, but a non-conventional one! Some of you might want to know how hard it is to design one. Some may know about solid and liquid propulsion systems but not non-conventional ones. And some of you may even ask the question, “What is ‘Propulsion’?”.

Since the word 'propulsion' itself might be new to you, let’s first define it, learn the basics, state the major concepts and then move on to non-conventional propulsion.

Simply put, propulsion is a method of propelling an object forward and maintaining its motion. Now that was easy. Then why haven’t you heard much about it?

That’s because ‘Rocket propulsion is an exact but not a fundamental subject, and there are no basic scientific laws of nature peculiar to propulsion. The basic principles are essentially those of mechanics, thermodynamics, and chemistry. Propulsion is achieved by applying a force to a vehicle i.e. accelerating the vehicle or, alternatively, maintaining a given velocity against a resisting force. This propulsive force is obtained by ejecting propellant at high velocity’. In fact, it is a practical application of the two basic laws that you are pretty familiar with: Newton's Third Law of Motion and the Law of Conservation of Momentum.

Concepts like those of aerodynamics, structural dynamics, avionics and much higher physics (like particle or plasma physics), to name a few, make the rockets we see today fly out of the earth. Propulsion remains an integral part in driving it out of earth's gravity (although, only to take it into another gravitational field) i.e. interplanetary travel. With today’s chemical propulsion systems, I_sp = 465 sec is an upper limit with cryogenic systems. (Now, what is I_sp? We'll come to it in the tutorial.) This performance makes an Earth to Low Earth Orbit (600-800 km) transfer cost $10,000 per kg of payload! Moreover these systems take a lot of time to travel in space as they have very less velocity (e.g. till LEO, velocity addition is typically around 7 km/s only and you ask why it takes 6 months to reach Mars even when it’s the closest!).

All this implies: Chemical fuels are a bad choice. Hence the need to go for alternative fuels. This need was foreseen long before the present day space programs, resulting in a series of non-conventional propulsion systems with theoretical designs prior to the initiation of even the Apollo missions. These systems offer very high I_sp values with operational models exceeding 1000 sec (e.g. Ion thrusters), lab tested models exceeding 4000 sec (e.g. VASIMR) and experimental models going up with 105 sec (nuclear "powered" rockets etc.).

• So, where are all these models now? Why aren’t they operational yet?
  
• When will these propulsion systems be able to reach distances in order of light years?

The answer to the first question is that even with sustained development, there is a lot of science to be understood and experimentally modelled to gauge the output of a complex system like VASIMR which today seems very feasible within the next 5 years. But for the second question, new physics and mathematics await all mankind without which, we cannot think of breaking huge barriers. (*But today, given sufficient fuel in an electric system, with an acceleration of 1g, we can reach speeds up to 30,000 km/s, i.e. 10% the speed of light, for a thrusting period of 2 years! Surprised? Find out how!)

So, the world is constantly trying to conceive new models that can give velocities never envisaged before. There are already a variety of models available at all levels including theoretical, experimental, lab tested and already operational.

And thus, here is Propulsion GenNext, for you to innovate and improve on the non-conventional rocket designs. It is essentially aimed at raking in conceptual designs from fresh young minds like yours. Important notes, tutorials, tips and the best available references will be uploaded from time to time to help you out in this event, one of the most unusual design competitions in a tech-fest.

Get ready for the challenge!!

Click here to download a tutorial on Propulsion and Non-conventional Propulsion Systems.

Awards

The top three posters will be displayed in ISRO in addition to cash prizes and certificates!

Finalists

The following teams have been shortlisted for the finals:

PGN002 | Soham Saha, Soumyadip Das
NISER, Bhubaneswar

PGN006 | Sanjay Senthamarai, Saravanan Subramanian
Park College of Engineering and Technology, Chennai

PGN009 | Prince Patni, Krishnendu Kumar Sahu, Sushil Tapariya
AeSI, New Delhi

PGN011 | Avi Vyas, R. Aditya, Aman Raj Verma
IIST, Thiruvananthapuram

PGN005* | Mithun Ganesh S
Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai
*This entry is only entitled to display, not to be judged. This decision has been taken by the judges after assessing the proposals.