Assuming you have the budget to research electrodynamic tether powered unmanned satellites, and you had a cheap way of getting them in to earth low earth orbit, would they be able to use electricity based propulsion alone to travel to stable orbits around the Sun (inside mercury for plasma fusion research), Jupiter (orbiting Europa), and Saturn (orbiting titan) for long term missions because of their strong magnetic fields?
Could electrodynamic tethers power long-term unmanned satellites around the Sun, Jupiter, or Saturn?
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I'm not sure that these tethers have any way of generating power on interplanetary trajectories. – Erik Dec 08 '14 at 07:49
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The wikipedia article has a reference which seems to answer positively (but the document must be paid). A complete (old) technical document is available: Tethers in Space Handbook - Third Edition. – mins Dec 23 '14 at 15:37