Solar sail force modeling for spinning solar sail using the radiometric tracking data

Abstract

Abstract: This paper investigates the solar sail force modeling of the IKAROS spacecraft using radiometric tracking data. The solar sail force model is one of the key parameter for the practical solar sail mission because the model impacts the overall trajectory design. Since the solar sail force model may have a large uncertainty due to the solar sail deployment and its optical properties, there is a difficulty to configure the model before the launch. This study concentrates on the estimation of solar sail force model for spinning type solar sail with post-launch information. The estimated solar sail acceleration is evaluated with overlap comparison between several tracking conditions. Keywords: Solar sail, Orbit determination, Navigation, Spacecraft modeling. 1 Introduction Solar sail is the one of the future technology could expand the deep space explorations, because solar sail have a capability to receive solar photon momentum and obtain acceleration without fuel. Many innovative applications are investigated using solar sails to for space explorations, for instance Mercury, asteroids and outer solar systems [1-3]. Therefore, many space organizations make efforts to realize the technique. For instance, Cosmos 1 project were funded by Planetary Society and try to demonstrate the solar sail technology on the Earth rotating orbit Reichhardt (2005). The 600 m