Abstract
Sail attitude equilibria exist under the influence of aerodynamic, gravity gradient and solar torques. Precession of the sail normal from these equilibria causes sail normal coning about that equilibrium attitude. If the coning happens at orbit rate, wide variety of orbital effects can be induced. Past work developed a coning controller that enables orbit rate circular coning of the sail normal about the attitude equilibrium. This controller enables the sail normal vector to trace a desired coning trajectory at orbit rate. In this analysis, the performance of spinning vs. non-spinning solar sails in inducing orbital effects is studied using the coning controller. Results show that control torques required are on the order of 10−6 Nm, and it is advised to operate a non-spinning sail to avoid complex mechanisms and to maintain system robustness.
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Abbreviations
- \( \beta \) :
-
Cone angle [deg]
- \( \delta \beta \) :
-
Angular measure for cone perturbation from the equilibrium point [deg]
- \( \beta_{c} \) :
-
Desired cone angle [deg]
- \( \beta_{0} \) :
-
Equilibrium cone angle [deg]
- \( C_{T} \) :
-
Coning trajectory
- \( \overrightarrow {h} \) :
-
Angular momentum vector [kgm2/s]
- \( \overrightarrow {{h_{c} }} \) :
-
Desired angular momentum vector [kgm2/s]
- \( \overrightarrow {{h_{S} }} \) :
-
Angular momentum vector from the sail simulation [kgm2/s]
- \( \widehat{n} \) :
-
Sail normal unit vector
- \( \hat{n}_{c} \) :
-
Desired sail normal unit vector (on the desired cone)
- \( \widehat{n}_{0} \) :
-
Sail equilibrium attitude in the L-frame
- \( \Updelta \widehat{n} \) :
-
Sail normal error between\( \hat{n} \) and \( \widehat{n}_{c} \)
- \( \phi \) :
-
Clock angle [deg]
- \( \phi_{0} \) :
-
Equilibrium clock angle [deg]
- \( \phi_{c} \) :
-
Desired clock angle [deg]
- \( \overrightarrow {\tau } \) :
-
Net external torque acting on the sail [Nm]
- \( \tau_{control} \) :
-
Control torque [Nm]
- \( t \) :
-
Time [s]
- \( \omega_{no} \) :
-
Equilibrium sail inertial spin rate [rad/s]
- \( \omega_{n\,c} \) :
-
Desired inertial sail spin rate [rad/s]
References
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McMahon, J. and Lawrence, D. “Orbital Maneuvering with a Solar Sail Through the use of Natural Attitude Coning,” Proc. of AAS Astrodynamics Specialist Conf. AAS 09-345.
Rizvi, F. “Solar Sail Attitude Dynamics and Coning Control to Attain Desired Orbital Effects,” Proc. of ISSFD Symposium, organized by Jet Propulsion Lab, NASA-Caltech, 2012.
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Acknowledgments
The author would like to acknowledge Prof. Dale Lawrence from the Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department at University of Colorado-Boulder who has served as an adviser throughout this work.
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Rizvi, F. (2014). Solar Sail Coning Control to Induce Orbital Effects in Spinning Versus Non-spinning Sails. In: Macdonald, M. (eds) Advances in Solar Sailing. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34907-2_45
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34907-2_45
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