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NASA's Next Solar Sail: Lessons Learned from NanoSail - D2
NanoSail-D2 unfurled January 17th, 2011 and commenced a nine month Low Earth Orbit path to reentry to evaluate a sail's capacity to deploy in space and deorbit satellites. The orbit was strongly affected by variables including but not limited to: initial attitude, orbit lighting, solar radiation pressure, aerodynamic drag, gravity, and Center of Pressure offsets. The effects of these variables were evaluated through a 3-DOF rigid body simulation. The sail experienced stability in orbits which were continuously lit, i.e. did not orbit behind Earth. Probable drag area experienced by the sail for the mission is also estimated from orbital data and compared to the attitude simulation results. Analysis focuses on sail behavior in full lighting conditions to establish the limits of the sails stability in full lighting. Solar radiation pressure, aerodynamic drag, and gravity torque effects are described. Lastly, a reasonable upper bound on the variation of the Center of Pressure from the geometric center of the sail plane is established. Each of these results contributes to the design requirements for future solar sails.
Solar Sail Propulsion: A Roadmap from Today's Technology to Interstellar Sailships
No abstract available
Space Storm Solar Sail Sentinel (S5) Mission Overview
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The NASA Solar Cruiser Mission – Solar Sail Propulsion Enabling Heliophysics Missions
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The Solar Cruiser Mission: Demonstrating Large Solar Sails for Deep Space Missions
No abstract available
“Are We There Yet?” Can We Biomap the Solar System with Low-Cost Solar Sail Missions?
Abstract: So much of our effort in space exploration has been devoted to one-off missions with major investments in each. This is a great strategy for early investigations of clearly significant planetary and small body destinations, but we have an entire Solar System to interrogate and the pace has definitely been slow to date. We are in the dawning era of much smaller spacecraft, and the potential to gather data from multiple destinations over longer time spans with a heightened cadence of missions to allow us to conduct survey-style investigations of the vast number of objects that attend our particular star. If we think of solar systems as belonging to one of two classes, i.e. life-bearing or not life-bearing, then the presence of some sort of biological or prebiological phenomenon on any individual body in a system places that system in the first category. The emergence of life can then be considered as a solar system-wide property and the entire suite of ingredients and processes that go into kindling of life anywhere within that system is of interest. This ranges from bodies with prebiotic chemistry through to full-blown biospheres. Thus, all bodies in a solar system are part of the milieu within which life occurs. Can the idea of low-cost solar sail-propelled spacecraft deployed en masse be useful for something as hard to investigate as life-like phenomena and their precursors? Perhaps, the answer is yes, and we must give serious attention to the possibilities.
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).
An Overview of the NASA Advanced Composite Solar Sail (ACS3) Technology Demonstration Project
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Solar sail attitude control including active nutation damping in a fixed-momentum wheel satellite
In geostationary cruise of a momentum biased satellite, it is necessary to stabilize the roll/yaw attitude due to disturbances, caused mainly by solar radiation pressure. This work presents a roll/yaw control which is obtained by the use of solar arrays and fixed flaps as actuators, with a horizon sensor for roll measurement. The design also includes an active nutation damping.
Innovative Structural Design Features for a 10 m Solar Sail Demonstrator
The successful development of sail architectures will require careful attention to a number of key issues including but not limited to material strength issues, stress conditions for the membrane, load interactions between membrane and structure, and membrane material planarity. Along with the inherent challenges of fabricating and handling very large membrane structures these issues will pose real challenges for the near-term development of practical sail technologies. SRS has developed innovative technologies that deal directly with the challenges of developing very large sail membranes. Some of these technologies include edge reinforcements and innovative reinforcement attachment techniques, production of flight durable sail materials of less than 2.5 micron thicknesses and large scale fabrication techniques. SRS has employed these technologies in several large 10 m demonstrators that have been delivered to LaRC for solar vacuum testing. Details of the design of this system will be discussed.
SUNSPOT: A computer program for producing optimal solar sail planetocentric trajectories
The input, output and subroutines, including listings, for the SUNSPOT code are described. SUNSPOT can calculate time optimal planetocentric trajectories including orbit-to-orbit transfer and orbit to a subescape point. Trajectories about the the four inner planets can be calculated, and shadowing, oblateness, and solar motion may be included. A penalty function may be included to prevent trajectories which intersect the planet's surface.
The High Inclination Solar Mission (HISM): Observing the Sun from above Using Solar Sails
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Preliminary Solar Sail Design and Fabrication Assessment: Spinning Sail Blade, Square Sail Sheet
The designs and fabrication methods, equipment, facilities, economics, and schedules, for the square sail sheet alternate are evaluated. The baseline for the spinning sail blade design and related fabrication issues are assessed.
Preliminary Design and Fabrication Assessment for Two Solar Sail Candidates
Primary emphasis is directed to the spinning sail design and fabrication assessment. Several methods of fabricating the spinning sail blades are presented and compared. Evaluations are made of each proposed design, as well as the baseline design. These efforts resulted in the recommendation of an apparent optimum design and fabrication plan with an assessment of the major advantages/disadvantages of each concept considered.
Analysis and assessment of film materials and associated manufacturing processes for a solar sail
Candidate resin manufacturers and film producers were surveyed to determine the availability of key materials and to establish the capabilities of fabricators to prepare ultrathin films of these materials within the capacity/cost/time constraints of the Halley program. Infrared spectra of three candidate samples were obtained by pressing each sample against an internal reflection crystal with the polymer sandwiched between the crystal and the metal backing. The sample size was such that less than one-fourth of the surface of the crystal was covered with the sample. This resulted in weak spectra requiring a six-fold expansion. Internal reflection spectra of the three samples were obtained using both a KRS-5 and a Ge internal reflection crystal. Subtracted infrared spectra of the three samples are presented.