PJ Drive
The plasma jet magneto-inertial drive, known colloquially as the PJ Drive, is the standard way of propelling spacecraft in interplanetary distances. Highly efficient, powerful and using relatively cheap fuel, it allows for ships to travel quickly between worlds without the complexities associated with the Hawking Drive. A simple explanation of its method is that it turns fusionable fuel (typically deuterium) into a plasma, then feeds this plasma into an ignition chamber, where a spherical arrangement of railguns fire heavier plasma at it. This compresses the fuel plasma, causing it to fuse and ignite. Magnetic fields keep the plasma in place long enough to entirely fuse and then the reaction mass is thrown out of the back as propellant. This occurs about 200 times a second, giving the vessel its propulsion.
PJ Drives are large and require substantial heat radiators, limiting their use to vessels of a certain size. Their exhaust is also highly charged and radioactive, so PJ Drives are not used within a planet's magnetosphere. Lower power, but less dangerous, chemical rockets are used for these manoeuvres. Smaller ships, or those factions and systems without the technical ability to build PJ Drives tend to use older open-cycle fission drives, whereas larger vessels such as FourDrive enabled ships use the more efficient, but much more massy, Hawking Drive.
Access & Availability
Ubiquitous
Complexity
High to very-high
Related Materials
Related Vehicles
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