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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 253 records · Page 14
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NASA NTRS1978

Elements of solar sail navigation with application to a Halley's comet rendezvous

The problem of interplanetary navigation of a solar sail spacecraft is examined and found to be analogous to that of solar electric spacecraft. The dominant navigation error sources are shown to be accelerations that are unaccounted for in the description of the vehicle's motion, due to the inability to precisely model the solar radiation pressure. A strategy for navigation in the presence of these accelerations is devised, based on techniques previously developed for solar electric vehicles. An evaluation of the strategy is made for a Halley's comet rendezvous mission, and the results of that evaluation indicate that the strategy gives acceptable performance.

Jacobson, R. A.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Phobos/Deimos Sample Return via Solar Sail

Abstract A sample-return mission to the martian satellites using a contemporary solar sail for all post-Earth-escape propulsion is proposed. The 0.015 kg/sq m areal mass-thickness sail unfurls after launch and injection onto a Mars-bound Hohmann-transfer ellipse. Structure and pay!oad increase spacecraft areal mass thickness to 0.028 kg/sq m. During Mars-encounter, the sail functions parachute-like in Mars s outer atmosphere to accomplish aerocapture. On-board thrusters or the sail maneuver the spacecraft into an orbit with periapsis near Mars and apoapsis near Phobos. The orbit is circularized for Phobos-rendezvous; surface samples are collected. The sail then raises the orbit for Deimos-rendezvous and sample collection. The sail next places the spacecraft on an Earth-bound Hohmann-transfer ellipse. During Earth-encounter, the sail accomplishes Earth-aerocapture or partially decelerates the sample container for entry into Earth s atmosphere. Mission mass budget is about 218 grams and; mission duration is <5 years.

Matloff, Gregory L.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Saturn/Titan Rendezvous: A Solar-Sail Aerocapture Mission

A low-mass Titan orbiter is proposed that uses conservative or optimistic solar sails for all post-Earth-escape propulsion. After accelerating the probe onto a trans-Saturn trajectory, the sail is used parachute style for Saturn capture during a pass through Saturn's outer atmosphere. If the apoapsis of the Saturn-capture orbit is appropriate, the aerocapture maneuver can later be repeated at Titan so that the spacecraft becomes a satellite of Titan. An isodensity-atmosphere model is applied to screen aerocapture trajectories. Huygens/Cassini should greatly reduce uncertainties regarding the upper atmospheres of Saturn and Titan.

Matloff, Gregory L.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Solar sail attitude dynamics and control

This paper describes some results of an attitude dynamics and control study for a solar sailing vehicle. This type of vehicle is currently under study and evaluation at JPL and has very high potential for interplanetary missions in and beyond the 1980s. Crucial to the success of such a vehicle would be the performance of its onboard attitude control system. Because of the vehicle's large size and its flexibility, vehicle deformations may have a potential for causing a degradation in vehicle performance. It may therefore be necessary for the control system to take into account the vehicle deformations as well as its rigid-body motions. Distributed parameter system analysis techniques are used in the paper to study certain fundamental aspects of such a control system for the sail vehicle. The techniques can, however, be more generally applicable to other large flexible vehicles.

Rodriguez, G.↗
NASA NTRS2019

A Multi-Blade Model for Heliogyro Solar Sail Structural Dynamics Analysis

An analytical model is derived to study the structural dynamic stability behavior for the free-flying heliogyro solar sail consisting of a finite set of symmetric or evenly distributed thin blades on a flat surface. Key properties of the flutter instability are described in terms of the relationship among the eigenvalues and eigenvectors associated with a flutter instability frequency. Various simulation cases for an idealized single blade, fixed rotational speed heliogyro model, and a generalized multi-bladed, freely spinning heliogyro model are presented to show how the flutter instability frequencies change as a function of the solar radiation pressure and the size of the dynamic model. Convergence of the flutter instability frequency versus the system order is demonstrated.

Juang, Jer-Nan↗
NASA NTRS1977

Conceptual analyses of extensible booms to support a solar sail

Extensible booms which could function as the diagonal spars and central mast of an 800 meter square, non-rotating Solar Sailing Vehicle were conceptually designed and analyzed. The boom design concept that was investigated is an extensible lattice boom which is stowed and deployed by elastically coiling and uncoiling its continuous longerons. The seven different free-span lengths in each spar which would minimize the total weights of the spars and mast were determined. Boom weights were calculated by using a semi-empirical formulation which related the overall weight of a boom to the weight of its longerons.

Crawford, R. F.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Comment on 'Time-optimal orbit transfer trajectory for solar sail spacecraft'

An analytic proof is presented to show that the orbital transfer times of an earth-to-Mars solar-sail propelled spacecraft trajectory as calculated by Jayaraman (1980) are incorrect. In particular, different boundary conditions are defined, which indicate that a minimization of the Hamiltonian, which Jayaraman used, can yield the wrong stationary solution. Transfer times are calculated using a neighboring extremal algorithm based on numerical differentiation in conjunction with Krogh's variable order, variable step size integrator, resulting in a transfer time of 322 days at 2 mm/sec-sq, with endpoint restraints satisfied to within 1/1 billion. Finally, it is concluded that minimization of flight time is secondary in importance to maximization of delivered payload and minimization of overall mission cost and risk.

Wood, L. J.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Demonstration of a 10-m Solar Sail System

The NASA In-Space Propulsion (ISP) program has been sponsoring system design development and hardware demonstration activities of solar sail technology over the past 16 months. Efforts to validate by test a moderate-scale (10-m) 1/4 symmetry ground demonstration sail system are nearly complete. Results of testing and analytical model validation of component and assembly functional, strength, stiffness, shape, and dynamic behavior are discussed.

Murphy, David M.↗
NASA NTRS2005

20 Meter Solar Sail Analysis and Correlation

This presentation discusses studies conducted to determine the element type and size that best represents a 20-meter solar sail under ground-test load conditions, the performance of test/Analysis correlation by using Static Shape Optimization Method for Q4 sail, and system dynamic. TRIA3 elements better represent wrinkle patterns than do QUAD3 elements Baseline, ten-inch elements are small enough to accurately represent sail shape, and baseline TRIA3 mesh requires a reasonable computation time of 8 min. 21 sec. In the test/analysis correlation by using Static shape optimization method for Q4 sail, ten parameters were chosen and varied during optimization. 300 sail models were created with random parameters. A response surfaces for each targets which were created based on the varied parameters. Parameters were optimized based on response surface. Deflection shape comparison for 0 and 22.5 degrees yielded a 4.3% and 2.1% error respectively. For the system dynamic study testing was done on the booms without the sails attached. The nominal boom properties produced a good correlation to test data the frequencies were within 10%. Boom dominated analysis frequencies and modes compared well with the test results.

Taleghani, B.↗
NASA NTRS2006

Controlling Attitude of a Solar-Sail Spacecraft Using Vanes

A paper discusses a concept for controlling the attitude and thrust vector of a three-axis stabilized Solar Sail spacecraft using only four single degree-of-freedom articulated spar-tip vanes. The vanes, at the corners of the sail, would be turned to commanded angles about the diagonals of the square sail. Commands would be generated by an adaptive controller that would track a given trajectory while rejecting effects of such disturbance torques as those attributable to offsets between the center of pressure on the sail and the center of mass. The controller would include a standard proportional + derivative part, a feedforward part, and a dynamic component that would act like a generalized integrator. The controller would globally track reference signals, and in the presence of such control-actuator constraints as saturation and delay, the controller would utilize strategies to cancel or reduce their effects. The control scheme would be embodied in a robust, nonlinear algorithm that would allocate torques among the vanes, always finding a stable solution arbitrarily close to the global optimum solution of the control effort allocation problem. The solution would include an acceptably small angle, slow limit-cycle oscillation of the vanes, while providing overall thrust vector pointing stability and performance.

Mettler, Edward↗
NASA NTRS2004

A solar sail integrated simulation toolkit

This paper describes an integrated set of high fidelity software tools that are being developed for the design of solar sail missions and analysis of the guidance, navigation and control (GNC) of these missions.

Lawrence, Dale↗
NASA NTRS2015

Performance Comparisons and Down Selection of Small Motors for Two-Blade Heliogyro Solar Sail 6U CubeSat

This report compiles a review of 130 commercial small scale motors (piezoelectric and electric motors) and almost 20 researched-type small scale piezoelectricmotors for potential use in a 2 blades Heliogyro Solar Sail 6U CubeSat. In this application, a motor and gearhead (drive system) will deploy a roll of solar sailthin film (2 um thick)accommodated in a 2U CubeSat (100 x 200 x 100 mm) housing. The application requirements are: space rated, output torque at fulldeployment of 0.8 Nm, reel speed of 3 rpm, drive system weight limited to 150 grams, diameter limited to 50 mm, and the length not to exceed 40 mm. The 50mm diameter limit was imposed as motors with larger diameters would likely weigh too much and use more space on the satellite wall. This would limit theamount of the payload. The motors performance are compared between small scale, volume within 3x102 cm3 (3x105 mm3), commercial electric DC motors,commercial piezoelectric motors, and researched-type (non-commercial) piezoelectric motors extracted from scientific and product literature. The comparisonssuggest that piezoelectric motors without a gearhead exhibit larger output torque with respect to their volume and weight and require less input power toproduce high torque. A commercially available electric motor plus a gearhead was chosen through a proposed selection process to meet the applications designrequirements.

Wiwattananon, Peerawan↗
NASA NTRS2003

Investigation of Structural Dynamics in a 2-Meter Square Solar Sail Model Including Axial Load Effects

This paper presents a parameter study of the effect of boom axial loading on the global dynamics of a 2-meter solar sail scale model. The experimental model used is meant for building expertise in finite element analysis and experimental execution, not as a predecessor to any planned flight mission or particular design concept. The results here are to demonstrate the ability to predict and measure structural dynamics and mode shapes in the presence of axial loading.

Holland, D. B.↗
NASA NTRS1989

The role of solar sails in the investigation and exploration of Mars

One of the projects designed by the Student Space Design Bureau (ISKRA) of the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI) is a space vehicle equipped with solar sails for stabilization and orientation control and, partly, as a propulsion unit. This report is a summary of work done on this project.

Krivenchenko, Eugene↗
NASA NTRS2009

Ultra-Large Solar Sail

UltraSail is a next-generation ultra-large (km2 class) sail system. Analysis of the launch, deployment, stabilization, and control of these sails shows that high-payload-mass fractions for interplanetary and deep-space missions are possible. UltraSail combines propulsion and control systems developed for formation-flying microsatellites with a solar sail architecture to achieve controllable sail areas approaching 1 km2. Electrically conductive CP-1 polyimide film results in sail subsystem area densities as low as 5 g/m2. UltraSail produces thrust levels many times those of ion thrusters used for comparable deep-space missions. The primary innovation involves the near-elimination of sail-supporting structures by attaching each blade tip to a formation- flying microsatellite, which deploys the sail and then articulates the sail to provide attitude control, including spin stabilization and precession of the spin axis. These microsatellite tips are controlled by microthrusters for sail-film deployment and mission operations. UltraSail also avoids the problems inherent in folded sail film, namely stressing, yielding, or perforating, by storing the film in a roll for launch and deployment. A 5-km long by 2 micrometer thick film roll on a mandrel with a 1 m circumference (32 cm diameter) has a stored thickness of 5 cm. A 5 m-long mandrel can store a film area of 25,000 m2, and a four-blade system has an area of 0.1 sq km.

Burton, Rodney↗