Related papers: High Speed AB-Solar Sail
Solar sails enable missions to observe the solar environment from unique vantage points, such as sustained observations away from the Sun-Earth line; sub-L1 station keeping; high inclination solar orbits; Earth polar-sitting and…
Solar sails propelled by radiation pressure enable space missions that cannot be achieved using chemical rockets alone. Significant in-space propulsion for missions such as a solar polar orbiter may be achieved with a sail that deviates…
A highly reflective sail provides a way to propel a spacecraft out of the solar system using solar radiation pressure. The closer the spacecraft is to the Sun when it starts its outward journey, the larger the radiation pressure and so the…
The Magnetic Sail is a space propulsion system that utilizes the interaction between solar wind particles and an artificial dipole magnetic field generated by a spacecraft's coil to produce thrust without the need for additional plasma or…
The authors describe the general motion of radiation-pushed sails accelerated near the speed of light with directed energy propulsion. Practical applications of the model are also given, including the interstellar flyby mission to the Alpha…
A spacecraft pushed by radiation has the major advantage that the power source is not included in the accelerated mass, making it the preferred technique for reaching relativistic speeds. There are two main technical challenges. First, to…
NASA has been considering a solar sail that would accelerate a craft to a high velocity (~ 14 AU/yr) by the time it reached 5 AU. Then the sail would be dropped and the craft would coast alone to deep space. We propose that the sail be…
There is a desire to observe the sun's poles to further deepen our understanding of solar activity. However, because of the large speeds needed to perform out-of-ecliptic plane maneuvers, chemical and electric rocket propulsion mechanisms…
In this study we considered a solar sail coated with materials that undergo thermal desorption at a specific temperature, as a result of heating by solar radiation at a particular heliocentric distance. Three different scenarios, that only…
Radiation pressure afforded by natural broadband sunlight upon a transmissive diffractive sail is theoretically and numerically investigated. A grating period of one micrometer is found to convert 83% of the solar black body spectrum into…
Near Earth Asteroids have a possibility of impacting with the Earth and always have a thread on the Earth. This paper proposes a way of changing the trajectory of the asteroid to avoid the impaction. Solar sail evolving in a H-reversal…
Background: A solar sail presents a large sheet of low areal density membrane and is the most elegant propellant-less propulsion system for the future exploration of the Solar System and beyond. By today the study on sail membrane…
We consider a special relativistic effect, known as the Poynting-Robertson effect, on various types of trajectories of solar sails. Since this effect occurs at order $v^{\phi}/c$, where $v^{\phi}$ is the tangential speed relative to the…
Solar sails with the capability of generating a tangential radiation pressure at the sun-pointing attitude, such as refractive sails can provide more efficient methods for attitude and orbital control of sailcraft. This paper presents the…
Solar sails can play a critical role in enabling solar and heliophysics missions. Solar sail technology within NASA is currently at 80% of TRL-6, suitable for an in-flight technology demonstration. It is conceivable that an initial…
New means of interstellar travel are now being considered by various research teams, assuming lightweight spaceships to be accelerated via either laser or solar radiation to a significant fraction of the speed of light (c). We recently…
Theoretical aspects of a solar sail material degradation are presented when the solar electromagnetic and corpuscular forms of radiation were considered as sources of degradation. The analysis of the interaction of two components of solar…
General relativity can have a significant impact on the long-range escape trajectories of solar sails deployed near the sun. Spacetime curvature in the vicinity of the sun can cause a solar sail traveling from 0.01 AU to 2550 AU to be…
Harnessing solar radiation pressure is key to transforming space exploration with multiple low cost sunlight propelled spacecraft to outer reaches of space. By controlling the direction of sunlight momentum transfer new missions and better…
Advanced diffractive films may afford advantages over passive reflective surfaces for a variety space missions that use solar or laser in-space propulsion. Three cases are compared: Sun-facing diffractive sails, Littrow diffraction…