Design and application of solar sailing: A review on key technologies

Solar sail technology has been proposed and developed for space explorations with advantages of low launch cost, no-propellant consumption, and continuous thrust, which has great potentials in earth polar detection, interstellar explorations and etc. The development of solar sail has made significant progress in structural design, manufacturing, materials, orbit transfer, and stability control in the past few decades, which makes meaningful contributions to astronomy, physics, and aerospace science. Technological breakthroughs of Solar Radiation Pressure (SRP) propulsion and interstellar transfer have been achieved in current solar sail missions. However, there are still many challenges and problems need to be solved. This paper attempts to summarize the research schemes and potential applications of solar sailing in space missions from the viewpoint of key technologies, so as to provide an overall perspective for researchers in this field. Analyses of the key technologies of solar sailing system design are provided. Finally, challenges and prospective development of solar sailing are discussed.     

太阳帆航天器动力学建模与求解

 太阳帆航天器动力学建模与求解是姿态控制与结构振动抑制的基础,具有重要的理论与工程意义。针对带有控制杆和控制叶片的太阳帆航天器,进行结构的合理简化。应用矢量力学基本原理,推导出考虑弹性振动的太阳帆航天器姿态动力学方程,再对其进行简化,分别得到基于控制叶片和控制杆的两类太阳帆航天器的姿态动力学方程,联立太阳帆支撑杆振动方程,结合非约束模态的定义对运行于超地球同步转移轨道的太阳帆航天器动力学方程进行了求解及分析,结果表明所建立的太阳帆动力学模型可准确地描述柔性太阳帆航天器的动力学特性。     

RCD太阳帆航天器人工平动点轨道保持与控制

针对航天器平动点轨道保持问题,研究了含有反射率控制设备(RCD)的太阳帆航天器在日地系共线人工平动点处的轨道保持与控制,同时降低因频繁改变航天器姿态所带来的振动问题。首先,基于太阳帆圆型限制性三体问题,计算了RCD型太阳帆人工平动点位置,给出了太阳帆共线人工平动点三阶Halo轨道,并将其作为参考轨道;然后,将太阳帆动力学方程线性化,采用跟踪控制输出的方法对线性模型进行控制;最后,通过合理选择控制变量矩阵,将控制律代入非线性模型中进行轨道保持控制。仿真结果表明,通过控制RCD太阳帆反射率设备参数及姿态角,实现了长时间的Halo轨道保持,同时大幅减小了太阳帆姿态角的改变,从而减小了帆面振动,为太阳帆航天器长期轨道任务的实现提供了良好的理论依据。     

Interplanetary scintillation observations of the high-latitude solar wind

Until the ULYSSES spacecraft reached the polar regions of the solar wind, the only high-latitude measurements available were from indirect techniques. The most productive observations in regions of the solar wind between 5R and 200R have been the family of radio scattering techniques loosely referred to as Interplanetary Scintillation (IPS) (Coles, 1978). Useful observations can be obtained using a variety of radio sources, for example spacecraft beacons, planetary radar echoes and compact cosmic sources (quasars, active galactic nuclei, pulsars, galactic masers, etc.). However for measurement of the high-latitude solar wind cosmic sources provide the widest coverage and this review will be confined to such observations. IPS observations played a very important role in establishing that polar coronal holes (first observed in soft x-ray emission) were sources of fast solar wind streams which occasionally extend down to the equatorial region and are observed by spacecraft. Here I will review the IPS technique and show the variation of both the velocity and the turbulence level with latitude over the last solar cycle. I will also outline recent work and discuss comparisons that we hope to make between IPS and ULYSSES observations.     

Ultraviolet spectroscopy of the extended solar corona during the Spartan 201 mission

The instruments on the Spartan 201 spacecraft are an Ultraviolet Coronal Spectrometer and a White Light Coronagraph. Spartan 201 was deployed by the Space Shuttle on 11 April 1993 and observed the extended solar corona for about 40 hours. The Ultraviolet Coronal Spectrometer measured the intensity and spectral line profile of HI Ly and the intensities of OVI 103.2 and 103.7 nm. Observations were made at heliocentric heights between 1.39 and 3.5 R. Four coronal targets were observed, a helmet streamer at heliographic position angle 135°, the north and south polar coronal holes, and an active region above the west limb. Measurements of the HI Ly geocorona and the solar irradiance were also made. The instrument performed as expected. Straylight suppression, spectral focus, radiometric sensitivity and background levels all appear to be satisfactory. The uv observations are aimed at determining proton temperatures and outflow velocities of hydrogen, protons and oxygen ions. Preliminary results from the north polar coronal hole observations are discussed.     

航天器燃耗最优轨道直接/间接混合法延拓求解

针对转移时间和始末状态固定的航天器燃耗最优轨道的求解,给出了一种延拓方法:以双脉冲轨道为初值,首先求解全程推进轨道,然后逐步增加推力幅值,应用直接/间接混合法依次求解所有推力幅值下的、满足包括开关函数在内的所有必要条件的转移轨道,包括连续和脉冲推力轨道。通过基于开关函数曲线变化趋势的开关序列预设方法,以及基于已有优化结果的延拓步长自适应方案,实现了延拓方法的自动运行。为实现该延拓方法,给出了适用于改进春分点根数模型的脉冲最优转移轨道主矢量必要条件,推导了无推力轨道段改进春分点根数协态变量状态转移矩阵。通过3个算例对延拓求解会遇到的不同情况进行了具体说明。延拓方法可以看作现有直接/间接混合法的进一步完善与拓展,延拓过程和结果有助于对燃耗最优轨道与系统参数之间的关联获得更为深刻的认识。     

太阳帆航天器被动姿态控制研究

针对由有效载荷、太阳帆和4个控制叶片所组成的太阳帆航天器系统,从物理模型出发,利用欧拉方程建立了姿态动力学模型,并通过数值仿真对太阳帆航天器基于控制叶片的对日定向性能进行了研究。研究结果表明,在行星际飞行中太阳帆航天器可以通过使控制叶片保持偏置来保持姿态稳定。     

Spartan 201 coronal spectroscopy during the polar passes of ulysses

Spartan 201 is a shuttle deployed spacecraft that is scheduled to perform ultraviolet spectroscopy and white light polarimetry of the extended solar corona during two 40 hour missions to occur in September 1994 and August 1995. The spectroscopy is done with an ultraviolet coronal spectrometer which measures the intensity and spectral line profile of HI Ly up to heliocentric heights of 3.5 solar radii. It also measures the intensities of the OVI doublet at 1032 and 1037 Å and of Fe XII at 1242 Å. The HI Ly line profile measurements are used to determine the random velocity distribution of coronal protons along the line-of-sight. The absolute HI Ly intensities can be used together with electron densities from the white light coronagraph to estimate electron temperatures from hydrogen ionization balance calculations, and bulk outflow velocities from models of Doppler dimmed resonant scattering. Intensities of minor ion lines are used to determine coronal abundances and outflow velocities of O⁵⁺. Ultraviolet spectroscopy of extended coronal regions from the 11 April 1993 mission of Spartan 201 are discussed.     

太阳风磁帆推进性能数值研究

利用考虑行星际磁场作用的磁流体动力学模型，建立了磁帆三维数值模拟方法，对计算方法的可靠性进行了验证，发现了线圈尾部的磁重联现象，研究了太阳风来流速度、等离子体离子数密度以及攻角对磁帆推进性能的影响。得出以下结论：不同速度、不同离子数密度的太阳风主要通过改变z方向电流的大小改变洛伦兹力，进而影响磁帆的推进性能：太阳风离子数密度恒定时，随着来流速度由30 km/s逐渐增大至75 km/s,z方向电流最大值由4 205 A/m²增至14 709 A/m²，磁帆所受推力由3.39 N增至13.40 N；太阳风来流速度恒定时，随着离子数密度由1.8×10¹⁹ m^-3增大至4.5×10¹⁹ m^-3,z方向电流最大值由6 039 A/m²增至10 585 A/m²，磁帆所受推力由6.62 N增至12.27 N。磁帆攻角变化，主要通过磁场构型的变化影响磁帆推进性能：攻角为0°和90°时的磁层半径分别为0.14 m和0.18 m，...     

Time delay compensation in lateral-directional flight control systems at high angles of attack

The previous studies of time delay compensation in flight control systems are all based on the conventional aerodynamic derivative model and conducted in longitudinal motions at low angles of attack. In this investigation, the effects of time delay on the lateral-directional stability augmentation system in high-α regime are discussed based on the $\dot{\beta }$ model, which is proposed in our previous work and proved as a more accurate aerodynamic model to reveal the lateral-directional unsteady aerodynamic characteristics at high angles of attack. Both the $\dot{\beta }$ model and the quasi-steady model are used for simulating the effects of time delay on the flying qualities in high-α maneuvers. The comparison between the simulation results shows that the flying qualities are much more sensitive to the mismatch of feedback gains than the state errors caused by time delay. Then a typical adaptive controller based on the conventional dynamic derivative model and a gain-prediction compensator based on $\dot{\beta }$ model are designed to address the time delay in different maneuvers. The simulation results show that the gain-prediction compensator is much simpler and more efficient at high angles of attack. Finally, the gain-prediction compensator is combined with a linearized $\dot{\beta }$ model reference adaptive controller to compensate the adverse effects of very large time delay, which exhibits excellent performance when addressing the extreme conditions at high angles of attack.     

太阳帆材料研究进展

太阳帆飞船由于无需动力等优势近年来引起了各国科学家的研究兴趣,并在深空探测领域具有重要的应用前景.太阳帆的结构设计和材料选择是影响其性能的重要因素,本文结合太阳帆飞行环境的特点,介绍了太阳帆的基本结构和飞行原理,重点针对目前几种比较典型的太阳帆设计,对其支撑材料以及帆面薄膜材料进行了综述,并分析了各种材料和设计的性能特点.     

Structural dynamic responses of a stripped solar sail subjected to solar radiation pressure

The stripped solar sail whose membrane is divided into separate narrow membrane strips is believed to have the best structural efficiency. In this paper, the stripped solar sail structure is regarded as an assembly made by connecting a number of boom-strip components in sequence. Considering the coupling effects between booms and membrane strips, an exact and semi-analytical method to calculate structural dynamic responses of the stripped solar sail subjected to solar radiation pressure is established. The case study of a 100 m stripped solar sail shows that the stripped architecture helps to reduce the static deflections and amplitudes of the steady-state dynamic response. Larger prestress of the membrane strips will decrease stiffness of the sail and increase amplitudes of the steady-state dynamic response. Increasing thickness of the boom will benefit to stability of the sail and reduce the resonant amplitudes. This proposed semi-analytical method provides an efficient analysis tool for structure design and attitude control of the stripped solar sail.     

蓄热式太阳能热光伏-热推进双模系统设计与性能分析

为有效解决在日蚀区太阳能热推进器推力失效、电力中断的问题,提出了蓄热式太阳能热光伏-热推进双模系统结构,并对系统各部件建立相关物理数学模型,分析了工质种类、工质流量等因素对推进性能的影响。结果表明,为保证推进器在日蚀区30min内持续提供推力和电力供应,砷化镓热光伏电池在无工质工况下能提供10W左右的低功率电力供应,在设计工况下能提供50W～110W的电力供应;液氢作为工质时,最大比冲将达到806s,随着工质流量的持续增加,比冲损失速率呈现先加快后减慢的变化趋势;液氨作为替代工质具有更快的加热速率,其比冲为240s～300s远低于氢工质比冲,其推力系数1.77要略高于氢工质推力系数1.7。通过本文研究,蓄热式太阳能双模推进系统具有较好的可行性,且推力及比冲适中,有望弥补低比冲化学推进和小推力电推进技术的不足。     

Cubesat solar sail 3-axis stabilization using panel translation and magnetic torquing

A Cubesat mission with a deployable solar sail of 5 meter by 5 meter in a sun-synchronous low earth orbit is analyzed to demonstrate solar sailing using active attitude stabilization of the sail panel. The sail panel is kept parallel to the orbital plane to minimize aerodynamic drag and optimize the orbit inclination change caused by the solar pressure force normal to the sail surface. A practical control system is proposed, using a combination of small 2-dimensional translation of the sail panel and 3-axis magnetic torquing which is proved to have sufficient control authority over the gravity gradient and aerodynamic disturbance torques. Miniaturized CMOS cameras are used as sun and nadir vector attitude sensors and a robust Kalman filter is used to accurately estimate the inertially referenced body rates from only the sun vector measurements. It is shown through realistic simulation tests that the proposed control system, although inactive during eclipse, will be able to stabilize the sail panel to within ±2° in all attitude angles during the sunlit part of the orbit, when solar sailing is possible.     

Singular formalism and admissible control of spacecraft with rotating flexible solar array

This paper is concerned with the attitude control of a three-axis-stabilized spacecraft which consists of a central rigid body and a flexible sun-tracking solar array driven by a solar array drive assembly. Based on the linearization of the dynamics of the spacecraft and the modal identi- ties about the flexible and rigid coupling matrices, the spacecraft attitude dynamics is reduced to a formally singular system with periodically varying parameters, which is quite different from a space- craft with fixed appendages. In the framework of the singular control theory, the regularity and impulse-freeness of the singular system is analyzed and then admissible attitude controllers are designed by Lyapunov＇s method. To improve the robustness against system uncertainties, an H∞ optimal control is designed by optimizing the H∞ norm of the system transfer function matrix. Comparative numerical experiments are performed to verify the theoretical results.     

混合小推力航天器轨道保持高性能滑模控制

针对采用太阳帆、太阳电混合小推力推进的航天器，研究了其在日心悬浮轨道的保持控制问题。为解决已有控制方法中未综合考虑内部未建模动态和外部未知扰动的问题，以及进一步提高系统控制性能，设计了一种高性能滑模控制策略。首先，考虑模型不确定性，建立了混合小推力航天器在日心悬浮轨道柱面坐标系的动力学方程；其次，基于改进型条件积分滑模面和径向基（RBF）神经网络设计了控制律，结合自适应方法在线估计不确定参数；接着，将求取的虚拟控制量在推进剂最优条件下转换成实际控制量，即太阳帆姿态角和太阳电推进力；最后，数值仿真验证了上述设计方法提高了系统鲁棒性，减小了轨道位置超调，并且混合推进相比于单一太阳帆推进，在更短收敛时间内控制精度提高了4个数量级，相比于单一太阳电推进，一年可以节省约89.6%的推进剂。     

Fast Dust in the Heliosphere

The dynamics of dust particles in the solar system is dominated by solar gravity, by solar radiation pressure, or by electromagnetic interaction of charged dust grains with the interplanetary magnetic field. For micron-sized or bigger dust particles solar gravity leads to speeds of about 30 to 40 km s^–1 at the Earths distance. Smaller particles that are generated close to the Sun and for which radiation pressure is dominant (the ratio of radiation pressure force over gravity F _rad/F _grav is generally termed ) are driven out of the solar system on hyperbolic orbits. Such a flow of -meteoroids has been observed by the Pioneer 8, 9 and Ulysses spaceprobes. Dust particles in interplanetary space are electrically charged to typically +5 V by the photo effect from solar UV radiation. The dust detector on Cassini for the first time measured the dust charge directly. The dynamics of dust particles smaller than about 0.1 m is dominated by the electromagnetic interaction with the ambient magnetic field. Effects of the solar wind magnetic field on interstellar grains passing through the solar system have been observed. Nanometer sized dust stream particles have been found which were accelerated by Jupiters magnetic field to speeds of about 300 km s^–1.