The Development of Solar Sail Propulsion for NASA Science Missions

Montgomery, Edward; Johnson, Charles C.

doi:10.2514/6.2004-1506

Cited by 19 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…High priority candidates are: (1) next generation ion thruster which features high exhaust velocity of more than 50 km/s, (2) sail propulsion utilizing the energy of the Sun, and (3) aerocapturing/breaking systems, which are expected to be used in combination with high-performance ion thrusters or the sails if you want to put an orbiter to the outer planets with atmosphere, because the aerocapture system will help the orbiter to decelerate without fuel consumption. Among the sail propulsion systems, solar sails are intensively studied by NASA and other space agencies targeting at future deep space missions (Montgomery and Johnson, 2004;Kawaguchi, 2004). Unfortunately, acceleration of the solar sails is usually small due to heavy materials used for the sail, hence it is difficult to shorten the mission trip time in particular for the missions within our solar system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratory Experiment of Plasma Flow Around Magnetic Sail

Funaki

Kojima

Yamakawa

et al. 2006

Astrophys Space Sci

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To propel a spacecraft in the direction leaving the Sun, a magnetic sail (MagSail) blocks the hypersonic solar wind plasma flow by an artificial magnetic field. In order to simulate the interaction between the solar wind and the artificially deployed magnetic field produced around a magnetic sail spacecraft, a laboratory simulator was designed and constructed inside a space chamber. As a solar wind simulator, a high-power magnetoplasmadynamic arcjet is operated in a quasisteady mode of 0.8 ms duration. It can generate a simulated solar wind that is a high-speed (above 20 km/s), high-density (10 18 m −3 ) hydrogen plasma plume of ∼0.7 m in diameter. A small coil (2 cm in diameter), which is to simulate a magnetic sail spacecraft and can obtain 1.9-T magnetic field strength at its center, was immersed inside the simulated solar wind. Using these devices, the formation of a magnetic cavity (∼8 cm in radius) was observed around the coil, which indicates successful simulation of the plasma flow of a MagSail in the laboratory.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Laboratory Experiment of Plasma Flow Around Magnetic Sail

Funaki

Kojima

Yamakawa

et al. 2006

Astrophys Space Sci

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“…Their ultra-lightweight and small-volume properties can potentially reduce the overall space program cost dramatically by reducing launch vehicle size requirement. Examples of on-going efforts include membrane Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) antennae [2], membrane sun shields [3], solar sail structures [4], and antenna reflectors [5]. One of the greatest challenges is that space membrane structures are subject to surface accuracy problems mainly caused by in-orbit thermal disturbances and other factors, such as imperfect deployment and long-term material property changes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermo-mechanical analysis of thin membranes and application in active flatness control design

Wang

Sulik

Zheng

et al. 2008

Industrial and Commercial Applications of Smart Structures Technologies 2008

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Membrane structures are excellent candidates for many lightweight large space structures, which can be utilized to improve the performance and to reduce the cost of space exploration and earth observation missions. In-orbit thermal disturbance is the main cause of membrane wrinkling, which deteriorates membrane surface accuracy. In order to maintain surface accuracy in the time-varying environment, active flatness control is regarded as a very important technology. In order to properly design active flatness control system, understanding of the thermo-mechanical coupling and the effects of tensioning forces in reducing membrane wrinkling is required. Based on the von-Karman nonlinear plate theory, a theoretical framework is developed in this paper. An FE model for a square membrane is developed as an example for case studies. Using thin shell elements, this model is capable of predicting the amplitude of out-of-plane displacements. Using this model, the effect of thermal disturbance is studied, which qualitatively agrees with experimental observations. By varying corner loads in the numerical model, it is demonstrated that corner loads can efficiently reduce surface deviation caused by a center-located heat source. In order to study the effect of thermal disturbance locations, different temperature distributions are applied to the membrane. With these temperature distributions, different tension forces combinations are evaluated in terms of improving surface accuracy.

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“…With ongoing interest in solar sailing based missions, there have been considerable projects envisioned by both NASA [1] and ESA [2,3]. Solar sails can provide unique capabilities for space missions due to their continuous acceleration.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Feasibility analysis of the angular momentum reversal trajectory via hodograph method for high performance solar sails

Zeng

Baoyin

et al. 2011

Sci. China Technol. Sci.

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In this paper a new phase space of hodograph method is adopted to investigate and better understand the two-dimensional angular momentum reversal (H-reversal) trajectories for high performance solar sails within a fixed cone angle. As the hodograph method and the H-reversal trajectory are not very common, both of them are briefly introduced. The relationship between them are constructed and addressed with a sample trajectory. How the phase space varies according to the sail quality and the fixed sail cone angle is also studied. Through variation of the phase space, the minimum sail lightness number can be obtained by solving a set of algebraic equations instead of a parameter optimization problem. For a given sail lightness number, there are three types of the two-dimensional possible heliocentric motion, including the spiral inward trajectories towards the Sun, the H-reversal trajectories and the directly outward escape trajectories. The boundaries that separate these different groups are easily determined by using the phase space. Finally, the method and procedures to achieve the feasible region of the H-reversal trajectory with required perihelion distance are presented in detail. solar sail, angular momentum reversal (H-reversal), hodograph method Citation:Zeng X Y, Baoyin H X, Li J F, et al. Feasibility analysis of the angular momentum reversal trajectory via hodograph method for high performance solar sails.

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The Development of Solar Sail Propulsion for NASA Science Missions

Cited by 19 publications

References 0 publications

Laboratory Experiment of Plasma Flow Around Magnetic Sail

Laboratory Experiment of Plasma Flow Around Magnetic Sail

Thermo-mechanical analysis of thin membranes and application in active flatness control design

Feasibility analysis of the angular momentum reversal trajectory via hodograph method for high performance solar sails

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