NASA NTRS · 20200007612
TPSAS-NF1676L-18560-DND
Abstract
The heliogyro is a helicopter-like spinning solar sail concept, conceived by MacNeal in the 1960s and studied by JPL in the 1970s. The heliogyro is a mission-enabling technology: - Membrane solar sail “blades” are compactly stowed on reels and easily deployed. - No elaborate management of large, 2-D membranes structures needed, so architecture may be scaled to very large sizes. - Lightweight due to centrifugal stiffening. Despite these advantages, development has lagged heavier, square-rigged solar sail designs (e.g., Sunjammer) due to the difficulty of fullscale ground testing. Dynamics need to be validated by (validated) analysis, followed by an affordable flight demonstration, to advance the maturity of heliogyro solar sailing technology.
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Keats Wilkie, Jay Warren, Lucas Horta, Jer-Nan Juang, Chad Gibbs, Earl Dowell, Dan Guerrant, Dale Lawrence. TPSAS-NF1676L-18560-DND. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20200007612
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