A simple control law for reducing the effective characteristic acceleration of a solar sail

Abstract

The direction and magnitude of a solar sail acceleration are strongly related. For this reason, once the characteristic acceleration has been fixed, it is not possible to modulate the acceleration in a particular direction. In this work, a semi-analytical switching control law is derived, enabling a solar sail to emulate a smaller effective characteristic acceleration (without changes in geometry or optical properties); by periodically changing the pitch (cone) angle of the sail, in average over time, the acceleration produced by the sail matches exactly (in both direction and magnitude) that of a “smaller” sail. The range in which this is possible is determined, and the limitations on this range due to the size difference is computed. The method is validated on optimal Earth-Mars trajectories.