Approximate Closed-Form Solution for Solar Sail Spiral Trajectories with Sail Degradation

Low-Thrust to Solar-Sail Trajectories: A Homotopic Approach

Accessing the Solar System With a Small Solar Sail

Solar sailing is a proposed means of space propulsion in which a reflective surface collects momentum from solar photons to accelerate a vehicle. The current trend within the solar sailing community is to increase sail size as solar sailing technologies advance, allowing for larger payloads and higher accelerations. However, with the miniaturization of modern payloads, sail sizes can be dramati...

Electric Solar Wind Sail Mass Budget Model

The electric solar wind sail (E-sail) is a new type of propellantless propulsion system for Solar System transportation, which uses the natural solar wind for producing spacecraft propulsion. This paper discusses a mass breakdown and a performance model for 5 an E-sail spacecraft that hosts a scientific payload of prescribed mass. In particular, the model is able to estimate the total spacecraf...

Flexible Models for Solar Sail Control

Solar sails employ a unique form of propulsion, gaining momentum from incident and reflected photons. However, the momentum transferred by an individual photon is extremely small. Consequently, a solar sail must have an extremely large surface area and also be extremely light. The flexibility of the sail then must be considered when designing or evaluating control laws. In this paper, solar sai...

Solar Sail Science Mission Applications and Advancement

Solar sailing has long been envisaged as an enabling or disruptive technology. The promise of openended missions allows consideration of radically new trajectories and the delivery of spacecraft to previously unreachable or unsustainable observation outposts. A mission catalogue is presented of an extensive range of potential solar sail applications, allowing identification of the key features ...