re electrical spacecraft via magnetic field of earth in article may aurora alaska edu nsmca aurora alaska edu writes okay the earth has a magnetic field if you put a object in the earth magnetic field it produces electricty well it s not that simple you re in earth s magnetic field and you don t generate electricity but it can be done now the question can you use electricity to power a space low earth orbit vehicle and i fyou can can you use the magnetic field of the earth to power it the way you power things is with electricity so the answer to the first question is definitely yes if you meant to say propel rather than power the answer is sort of yes you can use interaction with the earth s magnetic field to get electrical power and there are potential applications for this however bear in mind that there is no free lunch the energy isn t coming from nowhere what such systems do is convert some of the energy of your orbital velocity into electrical energy there are cases where this is a useful tradeoff using power obtained in this way for propulsion is useful only in special situations however what you can do is get your power by some other means e g solar arrays and run the interaction with the magnetic field in reverse pumping energy into the orbit rather than taking energy out of it if you want more information trying looking up electrodynamic propulsion tether applications and magsails can the idea of a dragless satellite be used in part to create the electrical field no a dragless satellite does not magically have no drag it burns fuel constantly to fight drag maintaining the exact orbit it would have if there was no drag this is why there are quotes around dragless svr resembles a high speed collision henry spencer u of toronto zoology between svr and sunos dick dunn henry zoo toronto edu utzoo henry
