Seminar 2014

Solar Sail

1. INTRODUCTION TO SOLAR SAILING

1.1 HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE TO DATE

The concept of solar sails is not at all novel. Johannes Kepler was the first person to come
up with this Idea. Johannes Kepler observed that comet tails point away from the Sun and
suggested that the sun caused the effect. In a letter to Galileo in 1610, he wrote, "Provide ships or
sails adapted to the heavenly breezes, and there will be some who will brave even that void." He
might have had the comet tail phenomenon in mind when he wrote those words, although his
publications on comet tails came several years later.
James Clerk Maxwell, in 186164, published his theory of electromagnetic fields and radiation,
which shows that light has momentum and thus can exert pressure on objects. Maxwell's
equations provide the theoretical foundation for sailing with light pressure. So by 1864, the
physics community and beyond knew sunlight carried momentum that would exert a pressure on
objects.
Jules Verne, in From the Earth to the Moon, published in 1865, wrote "there will someday
appear velocities far greater than these of the planets and the projectile , of which light or
electricity will probably be the mechanical agent ...we shall one day travel to the moon, the
planets, and the stars." This is possibly the first published recognition that light could move ships
through space. Given the date of his publication and the widespread, permanent distribution of
his work, it appears that he should be regarded as the originator of the concept of space sailing
by light pressure, although he did not develop the concept further. Verne probably got the idea
directly and immediately from Maxwell's 1864 theory (although it cannot be ruled out that
Maxwell or an intermediary recognized the sailing potential and became the source for Verne).

Pyotr Lebedev was first to successfully demonstrate light pressure, which he did in 1899
with a torsional balance; Ernest Nichols and Gordon Hull conducted a similar independent
experiment in 1901 using a Nichols radiometer.
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Albert Einstein provided a different formalism by his recognizing the equivalence of

mass and energy. He simply wrote p = E/c as the relationship between the momentum, the
energy, and the speed of light.
Svante Arrhenius predicted in 1908 the possibility of solar radiation pressure distributing
life spores across interstellar distances, the concept of panspermia. He apparently was the first
scientist to state that light could move objects between stars.
Friedrich Zander (Tsander) published a technical paper that included technical analysis of
solar sailing. Zander wrote of "using tremendous mirrors of very thin sheets" and "using the
pressure of sunlight to attain cosmic velocities".
J.D. Bernal wrote in 1929, "A form of space sailing might be developed which used the
repulsive effect of the sun's rays instead of wind. A space vessel spreading its large, metallic
wings, acres in extent, to the full, might be blown to the limit of Neptune's orbit. Then, to
increase its speed, it would tack, close-hauled, down the gravitational field, spreading full sail
again as it rushed past the sun."
The first formal technology and design effort for a solar sail began in 1976 at Jet
Propulsion Laboratory for a proposed mission to rendezvous with Halley's Comet.
Around this period a number of science fiction authors wrote of spaceships propelled by
mirrors, most notably the French authors Faure and Graffigny in 1889, however it was not the
until early 20th century that the idea of a practical solar sail was articulated. In the early 1920s
the Soviet father of astronautics Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and his colleague Fridrickh Tsander
both wrote of using tremendous mirrors of very thin sheets and using the pressure of sunlight
to attain cosmic velocities. There is some uncertainty regarding dates but it appears that
Tsander was the first to write of practical solar sailing sometime late in the summer of 1924. His
ideas seem to have been inspired in part by Tsiolkovsky's more general writings on propulsion
using light from 1921.
Following the initial work by Tsiolkovsky and Tsander the concept of solar sailing
appears to have remained unknown for over thirty years, until in the 1950s when the concept was
re-invented and published once again in the popular literature. The first American author to

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propose solar sailing appears to have been the aeronautical engineer Carl Wiley, writing under
the pseudonym Russell Sanders to protect his professional credibility.

In May 1951, in

Astounding Science Fiction, Wiley discussed the design of a feasible solar sail and strategies for
orbit raising in some technical detail. In particular he noted that solar sails could be 'tacked'
allowing a spiral inwards towards the Sun. Even in 1951 Wiley was optimistic about the benefits
of solar sailing for interplanetary travel and saw it as ultimately more practical than rocket
propulsion. A similarly optimistic view was taken sometime later in 1958 through a separate
proposal and evaluation by Richard Garwin, then at the IBM Watson laboratory of Columbia
University. Garwin authored the first solar sail paper in a western technical publication, the
journal Jet Propulsion, and coined the term solar sailing. Wiley recognised that solar sails
require no propellant and are continuously accelerated; therefore allowing large velocity changes
over an extended period of time. Such was Garwin's enthusiasm and optimism for solar sailing
he concluded that there are considerable difficulties connected with space travel, but those
connected with the sail appear relatively small.
Following the discussion of solar sailing by Garwin, more detailed studies of the orbits of
solar sails were undertaken during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Several authors were able to
show that, for a fixed sail orientation, solar sail orbits are of the form of logarithmic spirals.
Simple comparisons of solar sailing with chemical and ion propulsion systems showed that solar
sails could match or out perform these systems for a range of mission applications. Such early
studies explored the fundamental problems and benefits of solar sailing, but lacked a specific
mission to drive detailed analyses and to act as a focus for future utilisation.
By 1973 NASA was funding low-level studies of solar sailing at the Battelle laboratories
in Ohio, which gave positive recommendations for further investigation. During the continuation
of this work Jerome Wright, who would later move to JPL, discovered a trajectory that could
allow a solar sail to rendezvous with comet Halley at its perihelion in the mid-1980s. The flight
time of four years would allow for a late 1981 or early 1982 launch. Until then a difficult
rendezvous mission was thought to be near impossible in such a short time using the technology
of the day. A seven to eight year mission had been envisaged using solar-electric ion propulsion,
requiring a launch as early as 1977. The science community saw a rendezvous as essential for a
high quality mission. These positive results prompted then NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
director Bruce Murray to initiate an engineering assessment study of the potential readiness of

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solar sailing. Newly appointed from a faculty position at the California Institute of Technology,
Murray adopted solar sailing as one his bold 'purple pigeon' projects, as opposed to the more
timid 'grey mice' missions he believed JPL had been proposing for future missions. Following
this internal assessment, a formal proposal was put to NASA management in September 1976.
The design of a comet Halley rendezvous mission using solar sailing was initiated in November
of the same year. As a result of the interest in solar sailing, proponents of solar-electric
propulsion re-evaluated their performance estimates and in the end were competing directly with
solar sailing for funding. The solar electric propulsion system had a larger advocacy group both
within NASA and in industry. As a result of an evaluation of these two advanced propulsion
concepts NASA selected the solar electric system in September 1977, upon its merits of being a
less, but still considerable risk for a comet Halley rendezvous. A short time later a rendezvous
mission using solar electric propulsion was also dropped due to escalating cost estimates. The
enthusiasm of the science community for a rendezvous mission had in fact lead to the lower cost
fly-past option being discounted. Therefore, when the advanced propulsion required to enable a
rendezvous mission was deleted, some careful back stepping was required to justify a lower cost,
but less capable, fly-past mission. Ultimately though, it was too late and Comet Halley was
intercepted by an armada of Soviet, Japanese and European spacecraft, but no American craft.
A true solar sail has yet to fly, however significant steps have been taken since the
beginning of the 1990s. In February 1993, under the guidance of Vladimir Syromiatnikov, the
Russian Space Regatta Consortium deployed a 20-m spinning reflector, Znamya, form a Progress
supply vehicle. Observed from the Mir station this deployment showed that spin deployment
could be controlled by passive means.

In May 1996 a large deployable reflector was

demonstrated during the Shuttle mission STS-77. The 14-m Inflatable Antenna Experiment was
primarily designed as a radio frequency reflector, but the promise of inflatable technology
towards solar sailing was clearly demonstrated despite mission anomalies. In Kln in December
1999 the German space agency, DLR, in association with ESA deployed a square, 20-m solar
sail.

This deployment now forms the basis for a future DLR/ESA in-orbit deployment

demonstration perhaps in early 2006. Furthermore, in August 2004 the Institute of Space and
Astronautical Science in Japan, ISAS, deployed two solar sails in space from a S-310 sounding
rocket. NASA and several private enterprises all seeking to advance solar sailing are also

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conducting further work. It is thus clear that the technology is currently undergoing a revival in
interest and a renewed drive towards flight status.

1.2 SOLAR SAIL CONFIGURATIONS

The essential requirement of any solar sail design is to provide a large, reflective
surface with minimal structural support mass.

Furthermore, this surface should be easily

deployable and manufactured.

1.2.1 Square Sail

The first sail design concept considered is the square sail, the optimum design of
which has four deployable spars cantilevered from a central load-bearing hub, as shown in
Figure 1.1. Attitude control of the square solar sail can be achieved by inducing torques
generated by articulated reflecting vanes attached to the spar tips, or through relative translation
of the centre-of-mass and centre-of-pressure of the sail.

1.2.2 Helio-Gyro
An alternative concept to the boom supported film is to use spin-induced tension, as
in the heliogyro or spinning disc sail. At first the heliogyro appears a more attractive design as
the mechanical cantilever spars are removed, however the blades may require edge stiffeners to
transmit radial loads and provide torsional stiffness to allow blade rotation for attitude control.
The primary advantage of the heliogyro is the ease of packing and deployment.

1.2.3 Disk Solar Sail

The third concept is the disc solar sail, in which a film is held in tension through spin,
the film may be one continuous sheet or several segments, which together generate a nearcontinuous film, as in Figure below. The disc sail offers the same benefits of the heliogyro but
without the high aspect ratio blades.

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Figure 1.1 Solar sail design concepts (Image by NASA)

1.3 SAIL CHARACTERISTIC ACCELERATION

To enable sail design, configuration and/or requirements to be compared a standard
performance metric is required.

The most common metric for astrodynamics is the sail

characteristic acceleration, defined as the solar radiation pressure acceleration experienced by a

sail facing the Sun at the distance of one Astronomical Unit (AU). At this radius the solar
radiation pressure, P, is 4.56 x 10-6 N m-2. Therefore, multiplying the pressure by sail area, A, we
get the solar radiation pressure force on the sail. Dividing by the sail mass, m, gives the sail
acceleration. A factor of two is added to account for reflectivity, since reflected photons impart
an equal and opposite force to incident photons.

Finally, a finite sail efficiency factor is

incorporated to account for non-ideal behaviour of the sail. The sail characteristic acceleration is
then defined as
ao

2P
m
,

where is the solar sail mass per unit area, termed the sail loading. We note that the actual sail
acceleration is a function of heliocentric radius and sail orientation, however this metric allows
an accurate and fair comparison to be made between concepts.

1.4 SOLAR SAIL ORBITS

The physics of solar radiation pressure can be described in several ways. The simplest is
to think about the transfer of momentum to the solar sail by photons, the quantum packets of

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energy of which light is composed. As a photon hits the surface of the sail it imparts a
momentum onto the sail film, thus applying an impulse to the entire solar sail. Then, when the
photon is reflected a reaction impulse will also be exerted on the solar sail. The combination of
these two impulses summed across the entire flux of photons incident on the sail film then leads
to a force directed normal to the surface of the sail, as shown in Figure 1.2.

Thrust, n

Reflected
Radiation, ur

Reflective
Sail Film,
Of area A

Incident
Radiation, ui

Figure 1.2 Incident and reflected forces on ideal solar sail

The orientations of the solar sail, and so the force vector, is described relative to the Sun-line by
the sail pitch angle, , and clock angle, . The orientation of the sail pitch and clock angles, the
sail control angles, is defined in Figure 1.3. We note that the sail control angles can be defined
as either;
or,

0o

90 o

&

0o

360 o

-90o

90 o

&

0o

180 o

however, each is equally correct and equally widely used within literature.

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Normal to Sunline, within orbit

plane

Unit vector
normal to orbit
plane

Sail Normal

Sun-line

Figure 1.3 Orientation of the sail pitch and clock angles

By altering the orientation of the solar sail relative to the incoming photons, the solar radiation
pressure force vector can in principle be directed to any orientation within 90 o of the Sun-line.
As the pitch angle increases however, the magnitude of the solar radiation pressure force
decreases due to the reduction in projected sail area and the reduction in the component of the
solar radiation pressure force directed normal to the sail surface.
Solar sails are continuously accelerated so that their orbits are quite different from the
usual ballistic arcs followed by conventional spacecraft. By choosing either a negative or
positive sail pitch angle, with respect to the Sun-line, the solar sail will either spiral inwards
towards the Sun, or outwards away from the Sun. Such 'tacking' provides solar sails with the
ability to enable a wide range of mission applications. The rate at which the solar sail will spiral
is of course a function of its characteristic acceleration. By an appropriate sequence of sail
orientations, essentially any point in the solar system can be reached. However, for missions to
rendezvous with planets, comets or asteroids, the sail orientation must be continuously altered
along its trajectory to ensure that the solar sail matches the velocity of the target body when it is
intercepted. Optimisation methods can be used in such instances to determine the best sail
orientation time history to minimise the transfer time to the target body.

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2. SOLAR RADIATION PRESSURE

2.1 FORCE ACTING ON A SAIL

Solar radiation exerts a pressure on the sail due to reflection and a small fraction that is
absorbed. The absorbed energy heats the sail, which re-radiates that energy from the front and
rear surfaces.The momentum of a photon or an entire flux is given by p = E/c, where E is the
photon or flux energy, p is the momentum, and c is the speed of light. Solar radiation pressure is
calculated on an irradiance value of 1361 W/m2 at 1 AU (earth-sun distance), as revised in 2011:
Perfect absorbance: F = 4.54 N per square metre
Perfect reflectance: F = 9.08 N per square metre (normal to surface), A perfect sail is flat and
has 100% specular reflection. An actual sail will have an overall efficiency of about 90%, about
8.25 N/m2, due to curvature (billow), wrinkles, absorbance, re-radiation from front and back,
non-specular effects, and other factors.

Figure 2.1 Force on a sail results from reflecting the photon flux
The force on a sail and the actual acceleration of the craft vary by the inverse square of distance
from the sun (unless close to the sun), and by the square of the cosine of the angle between the
sail force vector and the radial from the sun, so
F = F0 cos2 / R2 (ideal sail)

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Where R is distance from the sun in AU. An actual square sail can be modeled as:
F = F0 (0.349 + 0.662 cos 2 0.011 cos 4) / R2
Note that the force and acceleration approach zero generally around = 60 rather than 90 as
one might expect with an ideal sail.
Solar wind, the flux of charged particles blown out from the sun, exerts a nominal dynamic
pressure of about 3 to 4 nPa, three orders of magnitude less than solar radiation pressure on a
reflective sail.

3. SAIL PARAMETERS
3.1 SAIL LOADING
Sail loading (areal density) is an important parameter, which is the total mass divided by
the sail area, expressed in g/m2. It is represented by the Greek letter .
A sail craft has a characteristic acceleration, ac, which it would experience at 1 AU when facing
the sun. It is related to areal density by:
ac = 8.25 / , in mm/s2 (assuming 90% efficiency)

3.2 THE LIGHTNESS NUMBER,

The lightness number, , is the dimensionless ratio of maximum vehicle acceleration
divided by the sun's local gravity; using the values at 1 AU:
= ac / 5.93
The table presents some example values. Payloads are not included. The first two are from the
detailed design effort at JPL in the 1970s. The third, the lattice sailer, might represent about the
best possible performance level. The dimensions for square and lattice sails are edges. The
dimension for heliogyro is blade tip to blade tip.
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Type

ac

Size

Square sail

5.27 1.56 0.26 820 m

Heliogyro

6.39 1.29 0.22 15 km

Lattice sailer

0.07 117

20

1 km

Table 3.1 Sail Parameters of some common sail configurations

4. ATTITUDE CONTROL
An active attitude control system (ACS) is essential for a sail craft to achieve and
maintain a desired orientation. The required sail orientation changes slowly, often less than 1
degree per day, in interplanetary space, but much more rapidly in a planetary orbit. The ACS
must be capable of meeting these orientation requirements.
Control is achieved by a relative shift between the craft's center of pressure and its center of
mass. This can be achieved with control vanes, movement of individual sails, movement of a
control mass, or altering reflectivity.
Holding a constant attitude requires that the ACS maintain a net torque of zero on the craft. The
total force and torque on a sail, or set of sails, is not constant along a trajectory. The force
changes with solar distance and sail angle, which changes the billow in the sail and deflects some
elements of the supporting structure, resulting in changes in the sail force and torque.
Sail temperature also changes with solar distance and sail angle, which changes sail dimensions.
The radiant heat from the sail changes the temperature of the supporting structure. Both factors
affect total force and torque.
The ACS must compensate for all of these changes for it to hold the desired attitude.

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5. SOLAR SAIL OPERATIONS

5.1 CHANGING ORBITS
Sailing operations are simplest in interplanetary orbits, where attitude changes are done at
low rates. For outward bound trajectories, the sail force vector is oriented forward of the Sun
line, which increases orbital energy and angular momentum, resulting in the craft moving farther
from the Sun. For inward trajectories, the sail force vector is oriented behind the Sun line, which
decreases orbital energy and angular momentum, resulting in the craft moving in toward the Sun.
It is worth noting that only the Sun's gravity pulls the craft toward the Sunthere is no analog to
a sailboat's tacking to windward. To change orbital inclination, the force vector is turned out of
the plane of the velocity vector.
In orbits around planets or other bodies, the sail is oriented so that its force vector has a
component along the velocity vector, either in the direction of motion for an outward spiral, or
against the direction of motion for an inward spiral.
Trajectory optimizations can often require intervals of reduced or zero thrust. This can be
achieved by rolling the craft around the sun line with the sail set at an appropriate angle to reduce
or remove the thrust.

5.2 SWINGBYS
A close solar passage can be used to increase a craft's energy. The increased radiation
pressure combines with the efficacy of being deep in the sun's gravity well to substantially
increase the energy for runs to the outer solar system. The optimal approach to the sun is done by
increasing the orbital eccentricity while keeping the energy level as high as practical. The
minimum approach distance is a function of sail angle, thermal properties of the sail and other
structure, load effects on structure, and sail optical characteristics (reflectivity and emissivity). A
close passage can result in substantial optical degradation. Required turn rates can increase
substantially for a close passage. A sail craft arriving at a star can use a close passage to reduce
energy, which also applies to a sail craft on a return trip from the outer solar system.

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A lunar swingby can have important benefits for trajectories leaving from or arriving at
Earth. This can reduce trip times, especially in cases where the sail is heavily loaded. A swingby
can also be used to obtain favorable departure or arrival directions relative to Earth.
A planetary swingby could also be employed similar to what is done with coasting
spacecraft, but good alignments might not exist due to the requirements for overall optimization
of the trajectory.

5.3 SMART LINES

A smart line could be a critical element of sailing operations. As with maritime ships,
lines are essential for a wide range of uses. One difference is that some lines may be very long
and need to be self-guiding. The lines could extend from and retract into the sail craft.
A maneuverable grappling device can be used at the end of a line to place or pick up
payload containers, to secure a ship to a structure such as a station, to pick up samples from an
asteroid or comet, or to engage in towing. The maneuvering unit is like a small spacecraft, with
many of the same sensors and control systems. It could draw power from and communicate with
the sail craft through the line. These operations could be done autonomously.
Lines a few hundred kilometers long may be used to move a ship from a space station to an orbit
farther out where it could begin sailing.

5.4 TOWING
Smart lines can enable towing operations by being able to attach to or release objects at
the remote end of the line. Attached objects might be pulled in to the body of the sailer or remain
at the end of the deployed line. Objects to be towed may have attachment points that allow
multiple sail craft to engage in the towing. Towing operations can include deflecting large bodies
that pose a hazard to Earth, bringing natural bodies to Earth or other sites for resource recovery,
and transporting disabled spacecraft or other structures.

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To tow or deflect a large body, poles can be inserted on the spin axis of the body. Sail
craft can attach to the embedded poles using smart lines. Slip rings enable the craft to tow
without the lines getting wrapped up as a result of rotation of the body.

5.5 OPERATION CONSTRAINTS

In Earth orbit, solar pressure and drag pressure are typically equal at an altitude of about
800 km, which means that a sail craft would have to operate above that altitude. Sail craft must
operate in orbits where their turn rates are compatible with the orbits, which is generally a
concern only for spinning disk configurations.
Sail operating temperatures are a function of solar distance, sail angle, reflectivity, and
front and back emissivities. A sail can be used only where its temperature is kept within its
material limits. Generally, a sail can be used rather close to the sun, around 0.25 AU, or even
closer if carefully designed for those conditions.

6. SOLAR SAIL CONSTRUCTION

The material developed for the Drexler solar sail was a thin aluminum film with a
baseline thickness of 0.1 m, to be fabricated by vapor deposition in a space-based system.
Drexler used a similar process to prepare films on the ground. As anticipated, these films
demonstrated adequate strength and robustness for handling in the laboratory and for use in
space, but not for folding, launch, and deployment.
The most common material in current designs is aluminized 2 m Kapton film. It resists
the heat of a pass close to the Sun and still remains reasonably strong. The aluminum reflecting
film is on the Sun side. The sails of Cosmos 1 were made of aluminized PET film (Mylar).
Research by Dr. G Landis in 19989, funded by the NASA Institute for Advanced
Concepts, showed that various materials such as alumina for laser lightsails and carbon fiber for
microwave pushed lightsails were superior sail materials to the previously standard aluminium or
Kapton films.

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In 2000, Energy Science Laboratories developed a new carbon fiber material that might
be useful for solar sails. The material is over 200 times thicker than conventional solar sail
designs, but it is so porous that it has the same mass. The rigidity and durability of this material
could make solar sails that are significantly sturdier than plastic films. The material could selfdeploy and should withstand higher temperatures.
There has been some theoretical speculation about using molecular manufacturing
techniques to create advanced, strong, hyper-light sail material, based on nanotube mesh weaves,
where the weave "spaces" are less than half the wavelength of light impinging on the sail. While
such materials have so far only been produced in laboratory conditions, and the means for
manufacturing such material on an industrial scale are not yet available, such materials could
mass less than 0.1 g/m2, making them lighter than any current sail material by a factor of at least
30. For comparison, 5 micrometre thick Mylar sail material mass 7 g/m2, aluminized Kapton
films have a mass as much as 12 g/m2 and Energy Science Laboratories' new carbon fiber
material masses 3 g/m2.
The least dense metal is lithium, about 5 times less dense than aluminum. Fresh,
unoxidized surfaces are reflective. At a thickness of 20 nm, lithium has an areal density of
0.011 g/m2. A high-performance sail could be made of lithium alone at 20 nm (no emission
layer). It would have to be fabricated in space and not used to approach the sun. In the limit, a
sail craft might be constructed with a total areal density of around 0.02 g/m2, giving it a lightness
number of 67 and ac of about 400 mm/s2. Magnesium and beryllium are also potential materials
for high-performance sails. These 3 metals can be alloyed with each other and with aluminum.
Aluminum is the common choice for the reflection layer. It typically has a thickness of at
least 20 nm, with a reflectivity of 0.88 to 0.90. Chromium is a good choice for the emission layer
on the face away from the sun. It can readily provide emissivity values of 0.63 to 0.73 for
thicknesses from 5 to 20 nm on plastic film. Usable emissivity values are empirical because thinfilm effects dominate; bulk emissivity values do not hold up in these cases because material
thickness is much thinner than the emitted wavelengths.
Sails are fabricated on Earth on long tables where ribbons are unrolled and joined to
create the sails. These sails are packed, launched, and unfurled in space.

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In the future, fabrication could take place in orbit inside large frames that support the sail.
This would result in lower mass sails and elimination of the risk of deployment failure.

7. SOLAR SAIL PROJECTS

7.1 IKAROS 2010

Fig 7.1 The model of IKAROS at the 61st International Astronautical Congress in 2010
Japan's JAXA successfully tested IKAROS in 2010. The goal was to deploy and control
the sail and for the first time determining the minute orbit perturbations caused by light
pressure. Orbit determination was done by the nearby AKATSUKI probe from which
IKAROS detached after both had been brought into a transfer orbit to Venus. The total effect
over the six month' flight was 100 m/s.
Until 2010, no solar sails had been successfully used in space as primary propulsion
systems. On 21 May 2010, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched
the IKAROS (Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun) spacecraft,
which deployed a 200 m2 polyimide experimental solar sail on June 10. In July, the next
phase for the demonstration of acceleration by radiation began. On 9 July 2010, it was
verified that IKAROS collected radiation from the Sun and began photon acceleration by the
orbit determination of IKAROS by range-and-range-rate (RARR) that is newly calculated in
addition to the data of the relativisation accelerating speed of IKAROS between IKAROS
and the Earth that has been taken since before the Doppler effect was utilized. The data
showed that IKAROS appears to have been solar-sailing.

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IKAROS has a diagonal spinning square sail 20 m (66 ft) made of a 7.5-micrometre
(0.0075 mm) thick sheet of polyimide. The polyimide sheet had a mass of about 10 grams
per square metre. A thin-film solar array is embedded in the sail. Eight LCD panels are
embedded in the sail, whose reflectance can be adjusted for attitude control. IKAROS spent
six months traveling to Venus, and then began a three-year journey to the far side of the Sun.

7.2 NANOSAIL-D 2010

Fig7.2 NanoSail-D of LightSail-1 with sail deployed

A team from the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (Marshall), along with a team from
the NASA Ames Research Center, developed a solar sail mission called NanoSail-D, which
was lost in a launch failure aboard a Falcon 1 rocket on 3 August 2008. The second backup
version, NanoSail-D2, also sometimes

called simply NanoSail-D,

was

launched

with FASTSAT on a Minotaur IV on November 19, 2010, becoming NASA's first solar sail
deployed in low earth orbit. The objectives of the mission were to test sail deployment
technologies, and to gather data about the use of solar sails as a simple, "passive" means of
de-orbiting dead satellites and space debris.

The NanoSail-D structure was made of

aluminium and plastic, with the spacecraft massing less than 10 pounds (4.5 kg). The sail has
about 100 square feet (9.3 m2) of light-catching surface. After some initial problems with
deployment, the solar sail was deployed and over the course of its 240 day mission

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reportedly produced a "wealth of data" concerning the use of solar sails as passive deorbit
devices.

7.3 SAIL DEPLOYMENT TESTS BY NASA

NASA has successfully tested deployment technologies on small scale sails in vacuum
chambers. In 1999, a full-scale deployment of a solar sail was tested on the ground at
DLR/ESA in Cologne.
On August 9, 2004, the Japanese ISAS successfully deployed two prototype solar sails
from a sounding rocket. A clover-shaped sail was deployed at 122 km altitude and a fanshaped sail was deployed at 169 km altitude. Both sails used 7.5-micrometer film. The
experiment purely tested the deployment mechanisms, not propulsion.
A joint private project between Planetary Society, Cosmos Studios and Russian Academy
of Science made two sail testing attempts: in 2001 a suborbital prototype test failed because
of rocket failure; and in June 21, 2005, Cosmos 1 launched from a submarine in the Barents
Sea, but the Volna rocket failed, and the spacecraft failed to reach orbit. They intended to use
the sail to gradually raise the spacecraft to a higher Earth orbit over mission duration of one
month. On Carl Sagan's 75th birthday (November 9, 2009) the same group announced plans
to make three further attempts, dubbed LightSail-1, -2, and -3. The new design will use a
32-square-meter Mylar sail, deployed in four triangular segments like NanoSail-D.

The

launch configuration is that of three adjacent CubeSats, and as of 2011 was waiting for a
piggyback launch opportunity.
A 15-meter-diameter solar sail was launched together with ASTRO-F on aM-V rocket on
February 21, 2006, and made it to orbit. It deployed from the stage, but opened incompletely
Solar sail launching projects in 2010 and 2011
On

21

May

2010, Japan

Aerospace

Exploration

Agency (Jaxa)

launched

the world's first interplanetary solar sail spacecraft "IKAROS to Venus. 62 NASA launched
the second NanoSail-D unit stowed inside the FASTSAT satellite on the Minotaur IV on
November 19, 2010. The ejection date from the FASTSAT microsatellite was planned for
December 6, 2010, but deployment only occurred on January 20, 2011. 63 The Planetary
Society of the United States plans to launch an artificial satellite "LightSail-1" onto the
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Earth's orbit in 2011. Despite the losses of Cosmos 1 and NanoSail-D (which were due to
failure of their launchers), scientists and engineers around the world remain encouraged and
continue to work on solar sails. While most direct applications created so far intend to use
the sails as inexpensive modes of cargo transport, some scientists are investigating the
possibility of using solar sails as a means of transporting humans. This goal is strongly
related to the management of very large (i.e. well above 1 km2) surfaces in space and the sail
making advancements. Thus, in the near/medium term, solar sail propulsion is aimed chiefly
at accomplishing a very high number of non-crewed missions in any part of the solar system
and beyond.

Manned space flight utilizing solar sails is still in the development state of

infancy.

7.4 SUN JAMMER 2015 (PROPOSED)

A technology demonstration sail craft, dubbed Sunjammer, is in development with the
intent to prove the viability and value of sailing technology. 65 Sunjammer has a square sail,
124 feet (38 meters) wide on each side (total area 13,000 sq ft or 1,208 sq m). It will travel
from the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrangian point 900,000 miles from Earth (1.5 million km) to a
distance of 1,864,114 miles (3 million kilometers). The demonstration will launch on
a Falcon 9 in 2015. 67 It will be a secondary payload, released after the placement of
the DSCOVR climate satellite at the L1 point.

7.5 LIGHTSAIL-1
A ground-based deployment test was successfully done at Stellar Exploration in San Luis
Obispo, California on March 4, 2011 with hardware and software adjustments leading to
further tests. The configuration has four sail panels supported by four diagonal booms.

8. APPLICATIONS OF SOLAR SAIL

Potential applications for sail craft range throughout the solar system, from near the sun
to the comet clouds beyond Neptune. The craft can make outbound voyages to deliver loads
or to take up station keeping at the destination. They can be used to haul cargo and possibly
also used for human travel.

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8.1 INNER PLANETS

For trips within the inner solar system, they can deliver loads and then return to Earth for
subsequent voyages, operating as an interplanetary shuttle. For Mars in particular, the craft
could provide economical means of routinely supplying operations on the planet.
Solar sail craft can approach the sun to deliver observation payloads or to take up station
keeping orbits. They can operate at 0.25 AU or closer. They can reach high orbital
inclinations, including polar.
Solar sails can travel to and from all of the inner planets. Trips to Mercury and Venus are
for rendezvous and orbit entry for the payload. Trips to Mars could be either for rendezvous
or swing-by with release of the payload for aerodynamic braking.

Table 8.1 Proposed sail parameters for various inner planet missions

8.2 OUTER PLANETS

Minimum transfer times to the outer planets benefit from using an indirect transfer (solar
swingby). However, this method results in high arrival speeds. Slower transfers have lower
arrival speeds.
The minimum transfer time to Jupiter for acceleration of 1 mm/s2 with no departure
velocity relative to Earth is 2 years when using an indirect transfer (solar swingby). The

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arrival speed (V) is close to 17 km/s. For Saturn, the minimum trip time is 3.3 years, with
an arrival speed of nearly 19 km/s.

Jupiter

Time,
yr

Speed
, km/s

Saturn

Uranus

Neptune

2.0

3.3

5.8

8.5

17

19

20

20

Table 8.2 Minimum time for outer planet missions

8.3 OORT CLOUD

A small team has proposed a beryllium inflated sail that would go down to 0.05 AU from
the sun in order to get an acceleration peaking at 36.4 m/s 2, reaching a speed of 0.00264c (about
950 km/s) in less than a day. Such a sail would take two and a half years to reach the heliopause,
six and a half years to get to the Suns inner gravitational focus (550 AU), with arrival at the
inner Oort Cloud in no more than thirty years. Such a mission could perform useful astrophysical
observations enroute, explore gravitational focusing techniques, and image Oort Cloud objects
while exploring particles and fields in that region that are of galactic rather than solar origin.

8.4 SATELLITES
Robert L. Forward pointed out that a solar sail could be used to modify the orbit of a
satellite around the Earth. In the limit, a sail could be used to hover a satellite above one pole of
the Earth. Spacecraft fitted with solar sails could also be placed in close orbits about the Sun that

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are stationary with respect to either the Sun or the Earth, a type of satellite named by Forward
a statite. This is possible because the propulsion provided by the sail offsets the gravitational
potential of the Sun. Such an orbit could be useful for studying the properties of the Sun over
long durations.
Such a spacecraft could conceivably be placed directly over a pole of the Sun, and remain
at that station for lengthy durations. Likewise a solar sail-equipped spacecraft could also remain
on station nearly above the polar terminator of a planet such as the Earth by tilting the sail at the
appropriate angle needed to just counteract the planet's gravity.
In his book The Case for Mars, Robert Zubrin points out that the reflected sunlight from a
large statite placed near the polar terminator of the planet Mars could be focused on one of the
Martian polar ice caps to significantly warm the planet's atmosphere. Such a statite could be
made from asteroid material.

8.5 TRAJECTORY CORRECTIONS

The MESSENGER probe orbiting Mercury used light pressure on its solar panels to
perform fine trajectory corrections on the way to Mercury. By changing the angle of the solar
panels relative to the Sun, the amount of solar radiation pressure was varied to adjust the
spacecraft trajectory more delicately than possible with thrusters. Minor errors are greatly
amplified by gravity assist maneuvers, so using radiation pressure to make very small corrections
saved large amounts of propellant.

8.6 DEORBITING ARTIFICIAL SATELLITES

Small solar sails have been proposed to accelerate the deorbiting of small artificial satellites
from Earth orbits. Satellites in low Earth orbit can use a combination of solar pressure on the sail
and increased atmospheric drag to accelerate satellite reentry.

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9 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

Advantages
1. No need to carry any fuel. Hence it has higher efficiency when compared to other
propulsion systems.
2. Simple design and concept.
3. Suitable for interplanetary and interstellar voyages.

Disadvantages
1. Can only be used from altitudes higher than 800 kms due to the opposing effect of the
air drag.
2. Deployment of the sails of the sail is a complicated process.
3. Maneuverability is extremely low without the support of powerful auxiliary
propulsion devices.

10. CONCLUSION

For interplanetary travel that requires even farther distances, the solar sail has been
proposed as a promising technology to achieve it. Solar sail stands as one of the most
realistic options for interplanetary and even intergalactic travel, as it eliminates both rocket
fuel and rocket engines that have been limiting space travel until now. In the solar sailpowered spacecraft, both the rocket fuel and engine are replaced with sails that are powered
by the suns constant pressure of photons. The sails are made of reflective material that has
the sunlights photons bounce off of it; as these light particles bounce off the mirror-like sail,

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they transfer their momentum to the sail to nudge it along. As for the force of this nudge, it is
true that the force on a solar-sail spacecraft is far less than a conventional chemical rocket
like the space shuttle. In the distance that the Earth has from the sun (150 million km, or 1
AU), NASA researchers found that sunlight can produce about 1.4 kw of power. Dividing
that number by the speed of light, 300 million m/sec, we find that force exerted by the sun is
about 4.67[10]^(-6) N. Although this small amount of force does not initially appear like
much, especially in relation to the force produced by the space shuttles engine (1.67 million
N during liftoff, 2.1 million N in vacuum), it is important to remember that many photons are
being constantly emitted from the sun. Therefore, this continuous force from sunlight will
give constant acceleration to the space craft. In the spaces almost completely frictionless
vacuum, such gentle constant acceleration can eventually thrust a spacecraft to velocities that
are 5 to 10 times faster (~90 km/sec) than traditional rockets (8km/sec). With this eventual
top speed, the solar sail vehicle would be able to reach Los Angeles from New York in less
than a minute. In another illustration, it would only take only eight years for a presently
launched solar sail vehicle to catch up with the most distant Voyager 1 spacecraft that has
been traveling for more than 20 years. In addition, the solar sail spacecraft will most likely
have laser or magnetic beam propulsion mechanism also onboard, for when it travels even
more distant from sunlight. By adding such a transmitter, NASA believes that the speed
could go up to 30,000 km/sec, one-tenth the speed of light.

11. REFERNCES
1. Solar Sailing: Applications and Technology Advancement by Malcolm Macdonald
2. Attitude Control and Dynamics of Solar Sails by Benjamin L. Diedrich
3. Solar Sail Performance Requirements for the mission to the outer solar system and
beyond by Bernd Dachwald
4. Wikipedia.org

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