Plasma Generator for Controlled Enhancement of the Ionosphere

Enig Associates, Inc., a small business providing advanced modeling and simulation capabilities to the DoD and DoE, is proposing an innovative and novel electrical approach, using explosive-driven flux compression generators to Joule heat light metal load in sub millisecond time scale from a solid metal state to a first ionization plasma state going through multi-phase transitions to generate an artificial, man-made plasma cloud in the ionosphere.The target plasma cloud will be composed of 10^25 ion-electron pairs of a few eV temperature,initially propagating as a disk jet or linear jet depending on the type of launch method, load material, and load geometry.The proposed STTR program will have the University of Maryland, Space Plasma Physics (SPP) group as our university partner.SPP will perform analytical/computational studies of the generated plasma and plasma cloud interacting with the ionosphere and the geomagnetic field.Both theoretical and computational tools will be utilized in designing an integrated generator device whose form factor fits inside a sounding rocket.At the end of the Phase II program, two prototype devices will be fabricated and delivered to Air Force for a risk mitigation test.