Pekka Janhunen, Ph.D., is a researcher in Finnish Meteorological Institute. He is best known for his Electric Solar Wind Sail invention.
The Electric Sail could enable travelling at speeds up to 100 km/s in space without any fuel consumption. With no major problems in any of the technical fields thus far, the planning of the first test mission has started, according to an article by Sciencedaily. In the same article, Sciencedaily wrote that "the electric solar wind sail developed by Dr. Pekka Janhunen might revolutionise travelling in space." Janhunen received funding for his electric solar wind sail research from Runar Bäckström foundation in 2005.[1]
Pekka Janhunen has mainly focused on planetary science. Some of the advances he has made in the field include "A three-dimensional stabilization mechanism for the auroral Farley-Buneman instability"[2] and the suggestion to use electromagnetic ionosphere in global magnetohydrodynamic simulations [3]