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Experts say the right kind of propulsion system could carry spacecraft to Saturn in two years. Direct fusion drive (DFD), a concept developed at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, would allow it to travel more than 1.5 billion kilometers extremely fast, the distance between Earth and Saturn. The research team has selected Titan, Saturn’s moon, as ideal for such a journey. This has sparked great interest in its surface fluids.
At the same time, the fact that they are hydrocarbons means that Titan could even become a complementary station in the future space highway system. This unit takes advantage of many of the benefits of aneutronic fusion, most notably the extremely high power-to-weight ratio. The DFD propulsion fuel contains deuterium and the helium-3 isotope. Even with a relatively small amount of this fuel, DFD propulsion would surpass today’s chemical or electric propulsion in spacecraft.
It combines the best of both systems: it combines the high efficiency of an electric drive with the excellent traction provided by chemical drives. Two DFD modes are being studied: one always develops the thrust and the other only at the beginning to reach the required speed. The trip to Titan would take 2 to 2.5 years, depending on the regime.
Source: popularmechanics.com.
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