Design for a solar sail demonstration mission
Solar sails are an important propellantless propulsion technology that can enable missions requiring very high velocity changes and/or non-Keplerian orbits.
solar sails↗
Engineering topics
Garner, C.
Publications and source records attributed to Garner, C..
Recent Activities in Solar Sail Technology
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
technology solar sail activities NASA↗
A Solar Sail Design for a Mission to the Near-Interstellar Medium
Mission concepts to several hundred AU are under study at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
solar↗
A Summary of Solar Sail Technology Developments and Proposed Demonstration Missions
NASA's drive to reduce mission costs and accept the risk of incorporating innovative, high payoff technologies into it's missions while simultaneously undertaking ever more difficult missions has sparked a greatly renewed interest in solar sails.
Solar Sail↗
The Ion Propulsion System on NASA's Space Technology 4/Champollion Comet Redezvous Mission
The ST4/Champollion mission is designed to rendezvous with and land on the comet Tempel 1 and return data from the first-ever sampling of a comet surface.
Ion Propulsion Electric Propulsion SEP Space Techn↗
Low Energy Sputter Yields for Diamond, Carbon-Carbon Composite, and Molybdenum Subject to Xenon Ion Nombardment
Sputter yields have been measured for polycrystalline diamond, single crystal diamond, a carbon-carbon composite, and molybdenum subject to bombardment with xenon. The tests were performed using a 3 cm Kaufman ion source to produce incident ions with energy in the range of 150 - 750 eV and profilometry based technique to measure the amount of sputtered material.
sputter yields Diamond Molybdenum subject Xenon Io↗
(abstract) Experimental Evaluation of Russian Anode Layer Thruster
This paper describes the results of a preliminary evaluation of a 1.35 kW anode layer thruster. Data on performance and plume characteristics will be presented. Data on thruster characteristics such as thrust, plume current densities, discharge voltage, discharge current, and mass flow rate along with the results of a 500-hour endurance test wear will be presented.
anode layer thrusters SPT thrusters propulsion end↗
(abstract) Evaluation and Development of Diamond Grids for Ion Optics
A research program is underway to establish the feasibility of fabricating 15 cm diameter ion engine optics from polycrystalline diamond film. Because of its high thermal conductivity, low CTE, and low sputter yield, diamond film has the potential of mitigating life limiting and performance degrading processes which have hindered flight qualification of ion thrusters to date. Results of experiments are reported.
ion engines diamond films ion optics fabrication f↗
Experimental measurements of the plasma sheath around pinhole defects in a simulated high-voltage solar array
An emissive Langmuir probe was used to measure the potentials within the plasma sheath developed around a hole in a simulated solar array at voltages between 50 and 450 V. The hole sizes were larger than actual pinhole defects; the plasma density was in the 10,000 per cu cm range, which is considerably lower than the density of 1,000,000 per cu cm found at low-earth-orbit altitudes. Despite these inadequacies in the simulation, the experiments indicate that this type of probe is a useful diagnostic technique for investigating the plasma sheaths developing around pinhole defects.
Gabriel, S. B.↗