The recent development of a strong, lightweight, thin-member substrate may provide the technological breakthrough that will enable heliocentric solar sailing missions. The missions considered in this paper used solar sails to transfer to a heliocentric circular orbit and then to apply a constant outward radial thrust acceleration. This radial acceleration allows the spacecraft to have a larger period than the Keplerian period at that radius. Heliocentric circular orbits are designed to match the orbital period of Earth or Mars and these designed orbits are termed synchronous orbits. Optimal control theory is applied to determine minimum-time solar sail orbit transfers for a range of Earth and Mars synchronous orbits and several numerical results are presented.
Optimal Solar Sail Orbit Transfers to Synchronous Orbits
J of Astronaut Sci
The Journal of the Astronautical Sciences ; 49 , 2 ; 269-281
2001-06-01
13 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
Optimal Solar Sail Orbit Transfers to Synchronous Orbits
Online Contents | 2001
|Solar Sail Optimal Orbit Transfers to Synchronous Orbits
NTIS | 1999
|Optimal Solar Sail Orbit Transfers to Synchronous Orbits
Online Contents | 2001
|Solar Sail Optimal Orbit Transfers to Synchronous Orbits (AAS 99-334)
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2000
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