Preventing Magnet Meltdowns Before They Can Start

High-temperature superconductor magnets have the potential to lower the costs of operating particle accelerators and enable powerful new technologies like fusion reactors. But quenches – the sudden, destructive events wherein a part of the material loses superconductivity – are a major barrier to their deployment.

Tokamak Experiments Provide Unique Data for Validating Spacecraft Heat Shield Ablation Models

When a spacecraft enters a thick atmosphere at a high velocity, it rapidly compresses the gas in front of it, creating a hot, dense plasma. To protect against damage, spacecraft are typically covered by a heat shield material. Scientists for the first time used a tokamak to study what happens to these materials in a hot plasma. The research creates a path to improving heat shield materials for future planetary exploration.