The radiation impedance of a current-carrying conductor in a JUNO-like Jovian orbit.

Abstract

The so-called electrical power generation problem for exploration of the outer planets could be solved deploying an electrodynamic tether. Wave radiation by a conductor carrying a steady current in a polar, highly eccentric, low perijove orbit, as in the planned NASA Juno mission, is considered. The high Jupiter's oblateness produces fast apsidal precession over the meridional plane. In a cold plasma model, radiation occurs in the Alfven and Fast Magnetosonic modes, exhibiting large refraction index. The radiation impedance in both modes is determined for a representative arc in the orbits. Unlike the Earth ionospheric case, the low-dense and highly-magnetized Jovian plasma makes the electron-gyrofrequency to plasma-frequency ratio large [1]; this substantially modifies the power spectrum in either mode.