Solar Light Pressure Research Articles

Research on the Lissajous Trajectory Transfer of Large Area Mass Ratio Solar Sail Spacecraft

Considering that the solar sail spacecraft working in the Lissajous orbit will be affected by the shadow of the earth or the solar wind, which sometime makes the spacecraft unable to work, we try to use the solar light pressure as the thrust to carry out the Lissajous orbit transfer in advance. Because the solar pressure parameters(cone angle, clock angle and solar pressure factor) will change the position of the libration points, we propose the idea of splicing the old and new libration point manifolds to transfer the escape spacecraft to the new Lissajous orbit to achieve orbit maintenance. The simulation results show that besides changing the cone angle and the solar pressure factor, the clock angle can also achieve orbit transfer, and the influence of the solar pressure factor on the periodic orbit is greater than the other two. This study provides a reference for the solar sail spacecraft in the aspects of periodic orbit transfer, orbit maintenance and avoidance of the earth's shadows.

Comparative investigation of methods for the numerical prediction of motion of asteroids that approach the Earth: Example of the 99942 Apophis asteroid

Using the 99942 Apophis asteroid (currently known as one of the most dangerous asteroids that is approaching the Earth) as an example, we estimate the error of predicting its motion with the use of several integrators over the time interval from 2012 to 2029. The minimum distance (and its error) between the Earth’s center and Apophis was estimated for the rendezvous moment on April 13, 2029. It is shown that this error for various integrators is comparable in the order of magnitude with the influence of certain components of the dynamic model of motion, such as, for example, the influence of harmonics of the Earth’s gravitational filed, solar-light pressure, the Jarkowski effect, etc.

New concept of high speed AB solar sail

The solar sail is a large thin film used to collect solar light pressure for moving of space apparatus. Unfortunately, the solar radiation pressure is very small about 9 muN/mm at Earth's orbit. However, the light force significantly increases up to 0.2-0.35 N/mm near the Sun. The author offers his research on a new revolutionary highly reflective solar sail which performs a flyby (after special maneuver) near the Sun and attains velocities up to 400 km/s and reaches far planets of the Solar system in a short time or enables flights out of the Solar system. New, highly reflective sail mirror allows avoiding the strong heating of the solar sail. It may be useful for probes close to the Sun and Mercury and Venus.

Nonlinear Evolution of a Balloon Satellite Orbit

The motion of a spherically symmetric balloon satellite near the equatorial plane is considered. Taking the Earth's oblateness and solar light pressure into account, the integral of motion can be obtained under certain simplifications. The eccentricity is related to the solar angle which represents an angle between pericenter and the Sun. This analytical approximation describes a large and complicated evolution of the eccentricity in corresponding areas of the phase space and the space of parameters. Phase portraits contain fixed saddle points and separatrices that divide different types of oscillations of the eccentricity. In the unsimplified problem, separatrices break down, and specific stochastic motions arise. The aims of the present study are (1) evaluation of the accuracy of analytical approximation with the help of numerical integration using a sufficiently complete model of motion and (2) numerical investigation of stochastic motions and dimensions of stochastic zones in the region of broken separatrices for an adequate model of motion. For a balloon satellite with a semimajor axis of 2.15 Earth's radii and a windage of 30 cm2/g the dimensions of a stochastic zone in eccentricity and solar angle are 10–5and 0.1°, respectively. The analytical approximation describes the orbit evolution in the right way, except for the cases of large eccentricities, e> 0.4, which corresponds to a pericenter height of less than 1400 km, where the atmospheric drag is already significant.

Regatta-Astro Project: Astrometric Studies From Small Space Laboratory

The REGATTA-ASTRO project provides a great set of astrometric and photometric measurements from Small Space Laboratory (SSL). SSL is a special spacecraft being designed at the Space Research Institute, USSR Academy of Sciences. The main feature of this spacecraft is the attitude control by solar light pressure. The main objective of the project is to compile precise global catalogues of star positions, parallaxes and proper motion containing stars with magnitude up to 8-9 and a position accuracy of 0.″01. The astrometric concept of the project is based on a highly deterministic spacecraft angular motion and numerous observations of each star using wide-angle TV cameras with CCD detectors. The SSL computer provides measurement data pre-processing, photometric referencing and data compression. Ground-based computers process the data statistically. The estimated vector includes star coordinates, SSL angular motion parameters and generalized distortion of the instruments used.

Interplanetary Magnetic Fields as a Cause of Comet Tails

IT has been generally recognized recently that the historic explanation of comet tails in terms of solar radiation pressure by either light or particles is impossible. Solar light pressure has been found to be insufficient by several orders of magnitude. Coulomb collisions or acceleration coupled with charge transfer by protons in the solar wind have also been shown by Biermann and Treffitz1, in particular, to be grossly insufficient processes to account for comet tails streaming within a cylinder of small diameter and great length away from the Sun. It is the purpose of this communication to point out that the gases in cometary comas will be efficiently ionized by the solar wind of ionized hydrogen embedded in a magnetic field2–4 and that an interplanetary magnetic field will couple the cometary gas to the solar wind.