Optimal solar sail spiral to escape

Abstract

A solar sail is being considered for various solar system missions, such as a comet rendezvous and a planetary sample return. Such missions might include a planetocentric escape or capture trajectory segment. This paper considers a method for calculating time optimal planetocentric solar sail spiral trajectories to near escape and orbit to orbit transfers. A number of examples illustrate trajectories generated with a computer program, SUNSPOT, based on this analysis.