English: For deceleration in the Interstellar Medium (ISM) the figure plots distance traveled while decelerating
(ly) and time required to decelerate
(yr) given a starting relative velocity
and a final velocity
(m/s) for the coil radius
=100 km an Interstellar medium (ISM) plasma density of 1.7x10
-22. The magsail mass is 197 tonnes assuming
= 10
11 (A/m
2) and
=6,500 (kg/m
3) for the superconducting coil. Force is defined in the Magnetic sail article for the magsail using the Andrews/Zubrin MHD model and the Gros kinematic model assuming C
d=4. Acceleration is force divided by mass, velocity is the integral of acceleration over the deceleration time interval
(yr) and deceleration distance traveled
(ly) is the integral of the velocity over
(yr). Numerical integration resulted in the lines plotted in the figure with deceleration distance traveled plotted on the primary vertical axis on the left and time required to decelerate on the secondary vertical axis on the right. Note that the MHD Zubrin model and the Gros kinematic models predict nearly identical values for stopping distance up to
~ 5% of light speed, with the Zubrin model predicting less deceleration distance and shorter deceleration time at greater values of
. This is consistent with the above figure where the Gros model predicts a smaller effective area
for larger values of
.