Most proposed solar sail configurations require an active attitude control system utilizing conventional cold gas thrusters or movable reflecting vanes. Any such technique implies both performance and reliability degradation in long mission applications. It was demonstrated by Kirpichnikov and his co-workers at the University of St. Petersburg that passive stability and flight path control can be achieved in two-dimensional trajectories by utilizing a sail geometry consisting of two rectangular reflecting surfaces connected at an angle along one edge with the apex pointed toward the sun. In this paper, the idea is further developed, and the coupled attitude and trajectory dynamics are explored for a wide range of possible sail geometries in three-dimensional motion. The geometry consists of two or more planar surfaces connected along the edges with variable angle between the planes. Since in some orientations one or more of the sail components may receive secondary reflection or shadowing from other components, these effects must be included in the force and moment model. Since large structures are implied, the dynamic model includes effects of gravity gradient moments. The three-dimensional coupled attitude and trajectory dynamics equations are written out for the completely general case. Quaternions are used to determine the required attitude information. The model is solved numerically and results are shown for several simplified geometries to demonstrate the potential benefits of this technique. Automatically controlled trajectories both inward toward the sun and outward are demonstrated. The performance costs in terms of payload mass due to use of multiple surfaces aligned to achieve the desired trajectory control and attitude stability are estimated. These are compared to performance costs using conventional attitude control methods. The preliminary results indicate that the passive control method using multiple sail surfaces is a promising approach in the search for the best design of propellantless spaceflight systems.
Solar sail passive attitude stability and control
Space Technology and Applications International Forum - 2001 ; 2001 ; Albuquerque, New Mexico
AIP Conference Proceedings ; 552 , 1 ; 373-378
2001-02-02
6 pages
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
Solar Sail Passive Attitude Stability and Control
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