Speakers
Description
Recent studies have analysed the potential of using a solar sail as a propulsion mean on board of spacecraft of nano/medium class, for space exploration towards both, inner and outer planets of the solar system in a relatively short travel transfer.
Space Agencies and other organization proved the technology by in-orbit-demonstrator:
The IKAROS spacecraft from JAXA launched in 2010, is the first interplanetary solar sail that flew by Venus at the closest distance of 80,800 km. IKAROS launch mass was 310 kg and the solar sail area is about 200 m².
In 2010, also, NASA NanoSail-D2 tested in low earth orbit, the deployment of a 9.3 m² sail carried by a 4.5 kg satellite.
NanoSail-D2 was followed by another NASA in orbit demonstrator, Advanced composite solar sail system (ACS3), a 12U cubesat able to deploy a 80 m² sail (2019).
Lightsail mission, from planetary society organization, demonstrates the controlled solar sailing in low earth orbit by using a 3U cubesat and a 32 m² sail.
The advantage of a solar sail with respect to the standard chemical thruster, is the propellant free design approach and the potential high velocity that is possible to achieve.
The drawback is that building up the needed delta V for planetary transfer needs time and once the probe approaches the target at high velocity, only a fly by will be possible.
The scope of this work is to explore the feasibility of generating on board of the solar sail spacecraft an artificial magnetosphere, (by using a currying current coil), able to interact with the magnetic field of the planet to allow the capture. The result is to design a hybrid spacecraft that makes use of both solar sail and magnetic sail (SOLAR-MAG SAIL).
Magnetic sail is not a new concept of space propulsion, detailed literature deals with different ways to operate such a system: by using the solar wind or indeed, the magnetosphere of a planet, (even interstellar plasma wind for interstellar travels).
In the paper a set of mission requirements will be identified. In the specific, the mission purpose is a demonstrative probe able to travel from a low earth parking orbit and be captured in a planned orbit around Jupiter.
The mission and system requirements will be the drivers to properly size the solar sail in terms of sail area and its manoeuvrability and the magnetic sail in terms of coil area and current intensity. The manoeuvrability of the solar sail and the current intensity will be considered as the control parameters that need to be computed to optimize the time of transfer and the capture.
From those, a rough sizing of the remaining platform subsystems can be assessed along with overall mission development cost and schedule.
Finally, a comparative analysis with more conventional missions that use chemical thrusters will be reported as well.