One-Winged Momentum-Biased Solar Sail: A New Methodology for Propellantless Attitude Control

Abstract

This paper proposes a new methodology for solar-sail attitude control that uses only momentum wheels. Different from conventional solar sails packaged in a central hub, the sailcraft is deployed in the direction of one side of the storage. In this single-wing configuration, the offset between the center of mass (c.m.) and center of pressure (c.p.) is large and lies in the sail plane. When specular reflection is dominant, solar-radiation-pressure (SRP) force vector points in the out-of-plane direction, thus causing an in-plane SRP torque orthogonal to the c.m./c.p. offset vector. Therefore, by placing a bias momentum in the c.m./c.p. direction, the sailcraft keeps rotating in the same plane while maintaining its orientation relative to the sun. Analysis reveals that the attitude motion of the one-winged momentum-biased solar sail is basically unstable, but the system can be stabilized in a neutral manner through minor control of the bias momentum. Furthermore, adding another control moment in the out-of-plane direction enables asymptotic stability. Control in the remaining in-plane direction makes it possible to avoid wheel saturation. Numerical simulations demonstrate that both attitude maintenance and maneuver can be performed and that the controller is robust to parameter errors.