Non-Propellant Eddy Current Brake and Traction in Space Using Magnetic Pulses

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is a well researched and clearly presented research article that present an innovative concept that has merit. There are several aspects of the study that could be strengthen. These are as follows:

a. At the outset it might be useful to present some more information about the rate of orbital space debris increase and key factors of concern in this regard such as the rapid deployment of large scale LEO constellations, the out-moded 25 year removal guidelines, etc. There might be references to about LEO consellation related projections of collission such as studies from the Aerospace corporation  i.e. Muelhapt et al in Journal of Space Safety Engineering, June 2019 p. 80 about projected collisions. 

b. There is now evidence from the ESA Swarm constellation and the MMS constellation from NASA of significant shifts in the Earth's magnetosphere. The extent of these changes and the rate of change are unclear, but the Southern Anomaly is clearly now present. Some comment about these changes and the possible impacts on these changes might make on the effectiveness of these changes to the geomagnetosphere might be noted as well.

These are only minor refinements, but they might be made by the addition of a few sentences to the article if the author chose to do so. 

The overall presentation is well presented scientifically and with clear language and graphics.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

In Manusript aerospace-1050185, the authors present an eddy current brake and traction system using magnetic pulse. This system can detumble and remove the space debris with irregular rotation. I think this research is interesting and serviceable. The paper is well-prepared, with very standard English. I would like to recommend the publication of the paper.

A few points to be confirmed with the authors are listed below:

1. About the title, I don’t quite understand why the authors emphasize “non-fuel” here. Obviously, the system doesn’t consume fuel, but it does consume electricity power.
   Also, I suggest specifying the scope of application (e.g. “in space”) in the title.

2. The title of Fig.19 is concerning “speed curve”, however, no speed curve is presented in Fig.19.
3. Please strengthen the description in Section 3.3. I could not understand from Fig. 20 why “the enhance modules” bring superior control effect.
4. Line 39, do the authors mean “depinning” or “despinning”?
5. In Fig. 6, there are Chinese characters in the figure, please correct.
6. Line 199, “as” -> “As”; “The”-> “the”.
7. Line 226, the indent seems incorrect.
8. Those “where” below equations are usually chapitalized, e.g. 12,15,16, etc. Please confirm.

Author Response

Please find attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Line 109: References 15 and 16 does not have Natalia Ortiz Go´mez as an author. It seems your references 15 and 16 are incorrectly placed. Should it be 19 and 20?

Line 371: By 'experimental data' are you referring to numerical experiments? If yes, then numerical experiments should be specified here to avoid any confusion.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I feel that this is a very interesting article and should now be published.

Reviewer 2 Report

All my concerns have been solved adequately. I do not have further concerns and I would like to recommend accepting the manuscript in present form.