Abstract
Traveling to outer space has long fascinated humanity, but the astronomical distances restrain us within our solar system. Laser-driven spacecraft is a promising candidate for interstellar explorations. The idea is to accelerate a sail to relativistic speeds using a laser beam aimed at the sail. Stable beam-riding is a passive mechanism that requires a comprehensive stability analysis of the sail based on its shape, material, and structural composition. This paper introduces general stability criteria based on a two-dimensional metasurface light sail model, followed by typical numerical simulations. In contrast to the ideal model used in previous studies, a more realistic model that takes into account transmission and reflection is proposed in this paper. In addition, the metasurface material is considered as solar sail membrane, which will provide greater flexibility in solar sail design. Parametric studies are performed to obtain the stability regions for different transmittance and parameters of the laser-driven sail. The force efficiencies are analyzed for different transmittance and the incidence angles of light.
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