High-performance solar sails for interstellar object rendezvous

Miller, Daniel; Duvigneaud, Fritzgerald; Menken, William; Landau, Damon; Linares, Richard

doi:10.1016/j.actaastro.2022.07.053

Cited by 7 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Bearing in mind the current solar sail technology level [16,23], the range below the (usually considered as canonical [34]) value of 1 mm/s 2 is consistent with a medium-high performance solar sail, which hopefully will be available in the near future. On the other hand, the upper part of the selected range of a c models the behavior of a (more futuristic) high performance sail [41][42][43][44], which uses advanced materials [45,46] to improve the propulsive performance. In order to evaluate the impact on the transfer performance of the sail thrust characterization, the orbit-to-orbit transfer has been optimized by considering both the ideal and the optical force model, using the normalized coefficients {b 1 , b 2 , b 3 } reassumed in Table 1.…”

Section: Numerical Simulationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Solar Sail Transfer Trajectory Design for Comet 29P/Schwassmann–Wachmann 1 Rendezvous

Quarta,

Abu Salem,

Palaia

2023

Applied Sciences

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The goal of this paper is to analyze the optimal transfer towards the periodic comet 29P/Schwassmann–Wachmann 1 of a solar sail-based spacecraft. This periodic and active comet is an interesting and still unexplored small body that has been regarded as an object of the Centaurs group. In this work, a classical (heliocentric) orbit-to-orbit transfer is studied from an optimal viewpoint, by finding the spacecraft trajectories that minimize the flight time for a given value of the solar sail characteristic acceleration, that is, the typical performance parameter of a photonic sail. In particular, the optimal Earth–comet transfer is studied both in a typical three-dimensional mission scenario and with a simplified two-dimensional approach, whose aim is to rapidly obtain an accurate estimation of the minimum flight time with a reduced computation cost. The numerical simulations illustrate the mission performance, in terms of the characteristics of the rapid transfer trajectory, as a function of the typical propulsive parameter and the solar sail thrust model.

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Section: Numerical Simulationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Solar Sail Transfer Trajectory Design for Comet 29P/Schwassmann–Wachmann 1 Rendezvous

Quarta,

Abu Salem,

Palaia

2023

Applied Sciences

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“…While this choice of 𝐷 𝑖 ∼ 𝐷 ISO constitutes an idealization to some degree, it might not be unreasonable provided that the detection occurs at distances ≳ 𝐷 ISO when the ISO is inbound into the Solar system and the spacecraft is designed and equipped beforehand for a quick launch thereafter [refer to 121, Section 5.5.4]. Plausible mission architectures to intercept ISOs of sizes ≲ 1-10 km based on different wait times, orbital maneuvers, and propulsion methods have been formulated by many authors [122,123,124,125,126,127,128,129,130,131,132,133,134,135,136,137].…”

Section: Distances To Isos and Other Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%