太阳帆航天器移位轨道设计

研究了太阳帆日心移位轨道的稳定性、控制律设计及轨道拼接。将柱坐标形式的太阳帆动力学方程在参考移位轨道附近线性化,得到线性变分方程。分析线性变分方程的特征值在复数平面上的位置就可以得到移位轨道的稳定性条件。设计了太阳帆日心移位轨道的控制律,并证明了控制律满足稳定性条件。该控制律仅要求太阳帆在移位轨道飞行时姿态角α保持不变。此外,太阳帆移位轨道可以与开普勒轨道相互转化,也可以与移位轨道之间相互拼接。     

太阳帆参数对稳定性的影响

太阳帆的轨道和姿态控制是太阳帆研究的重要领域。在同时考虑太阳帆轨道和姿态的情况下,研究了太阳帆在悬浮轨道的被动稳定飞行问题。通过设计帆的面积和支撑有效载荷杆的长度,使太阳帆在轨被动稳定飞行,主要研究了两个参数对太阳帆稳定性的影响。研究结果表明,太阳帆的面积对帆的稳定性影响较大,面积较小时太阳帆总能被动稳定。杆的长度对帆的稳定性影响不大,给定杆的长度,通过设计太阳帆的面积总能使太阳帆被动稳定。     

太阳帆航天器的轨道动力学和轨道控制研究

研究了太阳帆轨道动力学和利用太阳帆推进实现非开普勒轨道的太阳帆控制问题 ,推导了Gauss形式的太阳帆探测器密切轨道六要素微分方程,分析了太阳帆的轨道控制设 计方法,描述了适合太阳帆姿态控制的执行机构。在此理论基础上以SPORT计划作为设计实 例,并进行了设计与仿真,实现了任务要求的目标轨道。     

基于木星借力的太阳极轨探测器轨道设计方法

提出一种从地球发射至日心大倾角轨道设计方法。讨论了该类轨道的实现方式,分析了地球、太阳、行星的相对位置关系,建立了基于行星借力的日心大倾角轨道设计数学模型,给出了设计方法的流程。尤利西斯探测器转移轨道设计算例验证了方法的合理性和有效性。     

太阳帆绕地球周期轨道研究

  地球同步和太阳同步卫星在各个领域有着广泛的应用。静止轨道是一种特殊的地球同步轨道,轨道资源有限。利用化学推进或电推进可以实现轨道高度不同的同步轨道,如悬挂轨道,但需要消耗较多的燃料,工程上无法承受。本文考虑利用太阳帆实现地球同步和太阳同步轨道。太阳光压力在轨道平面内沿拱线方向,选择光压力与平面的夹角使得轨道平面的旋转速率与太阳光同步。研究表明,设计合适的半长轴和偏心率可以使得轨道旋转速率与地球自转速率一致。假设太阳光与赤道平面平行,可以得到准静止轨道,太阳帆将在传统静止轨道的附近运动,星下点的经度将在一个固定值附近振动。实际上太阳光是与黄道面平行,黄道面与赤道面之间存在夹角。考虑黄赤交角的情况下,太阳帆将在一定纬度和经度范围内运动。适合于对某个区域进行长期观测任务。     

非理想太阳帆受阴影影响的地球逃逸轨道探讨

太阳帆航天器通过反射太阳光子实现推进,是一类特殊的小推力航天器,因此其逃逸轨道不同于常规化学推进的航天器。文章考虑太阳帆帆面褶皱和鼓起等因素,建立更为真实的太阳帆光压力模型;同时,由日地关系建立三种不同的二维地影模型,并进行了初步的对比仿真研究。研究结果表明:尽管非理想太阳帆和地球遮挡这两个因素短时间的影响很小,但随着时间的推移,会对整体逃逸轨道和逃逸时间产生累积影响。文章的研究结果对于利用太阳帆实现逃逸轨道设计和姿态控制具有一定的指导意义。     

人工拉格朗日点附近的被动稳定飞行

利用太阳帆能在三体问题中实现人工拉格朗日点,人工拉格朗日点克服了经典拉格朗日点位置固定的缺点,研究人工拉格朗日点的被动控制对深空探测有重要的意义。理论上人工拉格朗日点都不稳定,研究表明在被动控制下存在某些人工拉格朗日点的稳定特性与稳定平衡点非常接近,在工程上可以认为稳定。被动控制可以通过设计太阳帆来实现,本文给出了被动稳定太阳帆的设计,在该设计下考虑轨道和姿态的耦合动力学方程。基于该耦合方程研究了人工拉格朗日点的稳定性。仿真结果表明被动太阳帆使得人工拉格朗日点稳定。     

条带式太阳帆航天器的热致结构动力学响应

本文研究条带式太阳帆在近地轨道运行进出地球阴影时的热致结构动力学响应，建立了在太阳热辐射和光压共同作用下的太阳帆结构动力学方程，采用分布传递函数法，给出了条带式太阳帆热致结构稳态振动幅频响应的计算方法。算例结果表明：热辐射冲击是引起近地轨道太阳帆结构动力学响应的主要原因，光压引起的结构响应可忽略不计；增加桅杆壁厚不能有效抑制太阳帆的热致结构动态响应；增大阻尼，减小结构的热膨胀系数能够明显减小太阳帆热致结构响应的振幅；热致结构动态响应是设计大尺寸近地轨道太阳帆必须解决的问题。本文提出的方法可为太阳帆结构设计、姿态和轨道控制提供有力的分析工具。     

柔性太阳帆轨道-姿态-弹性振动耦合效应研究

建立了柔性太阳帆轨道、姿态、弹性振动耦合的动力学降阶模型。分析该模型在地心大偏心率椭圆轨道的动力学表明:太阳光压力是太阳帆轨道产生偏差的主要原因,且太阳光压力会引起太阳帆姿态的剧烈变化和柔性结构的大幅振动,同时太阳帆的结构振动会对其姿态造成累积偏差。研究发现,太阳帆在空间的运行是一个轨道、姿态、弹性振动三方面强烈耦合的复杂问题。     

采用Gauss伪谱法的小推力日-火Halo轨道转移优化设计

针对日-地Halo轨道到日-火Halo轨道的小推力轨道转移问题,给出一种基于不变流形理论和Gauss伪谱法的优化设计方法。首先,在日心惯性坐标系中建立小推力轨道优化模型,并基于不变流形理论给出轨道转移中流形出口和入口的选择原则,应用该原则在日-地系统中选择流形出口,在日-火系统中选择流形入口,并将其作为轨道转移的初末状态;然后基于Gauss伪谱法将最优控制问题离散化为非线性规划(NLP)问题,并采用基于逆多项式的形状算法给出了NLP初值的计算方法;最后对该轨道转移问题进行了数学仿真。仿真结果表明：Gauss伪谱法可有效用于小推力日-火Halo轨道转移的优化,且采用逆多项式形状算法得到的初值具有初始误差小,使得NLP收敛速度快的特点。     

Can solar sails be used to test fundamental physics?

The relative importance of certain general relativistic effects is enhanced by solar radiation pressure (SRP). The observation and study of the trajectories of a solar sail could potentially provide tests of various effects of general relativity. In particular, we study Keplerian and non-Keplerian orbits near the sun as well as escape trajectories for a solar sail, for which general relativistic effects and the solar radiation pressure are considered simultaneously. In contrast with the conventional solar mission, a solar sail allows for non-Keplerian orbits, for which the orbital plane lies above the sun. It is predicted that there is an analog of the Lense–Thirring effect for non-Keplerian orbits. Also the SRP increases the amount of precession per orbit due to the Lense–Thirring effect for polar heliocentric orbits. A solar sail would also enhance the relative importance of effects associated with a possible net charge on the sun and during many rotations this effect may be measurable.     

Fast solar sail rendezvous mission to near Earth asteroids

The concept of fast solar sail rendezvous missions to near Earth asteroids is presented by considering the hyperbolic launch excess velocity as a design parameter. After introducing an initial constraint on the hyperbolic excess velocity, a time optimal control framework is derived and solved by using an indirect method. The coplanar circular orbit rendezvous scenario is investigated first to evaluate the variational trend of the transfer time with respect to different hyperbolic excess velocities and solar sail characteristic accelerations. The influence of the asteroid orbital inclination and eccentricity on the transfer time is studied in a parametric way. The optimal direction and magnitude of the hyperbolic excess velocity are identified via numerical simulations. The found results for coplanar circular scenarios are compared in terms of fuel consumption to the corresponding bi-impulsive transfer of the same flight time, but without using a solar sail. The fuel consumption tradeoff between the required hyperbolic excess velocity and the achievable flight time is discussed. The required total launch mass for a particular solar sail is derived in analytical form. A practical mission application is proposed to rendezvous with the asteroid 99942 Apophis by using a solar sail in combination with the provided hyperbolic excess velocity.     

Station keeping of a solar sail around a Halo orbit

Solar sails are a concept of spacecraft propulsion that takes advantage of solar radiation pressure to propel a spacecraft. Although the thrust provided by a solar sail is small it is constant and unlimited. This offers the chance to deal with novel mission concept. In this work we want to discuss the controllability of a spacecraft around a Halo orbit by means of a solar sail. We will describe the natural dynamics for a solar sail around a Halo orbit. By natural dynamics we mean the behaviour of the trajectory of a solar sail when no control on the sail orientation is applied. We will then discuss how a sequence of changes on the sail orientation will affects the sail's trajectory, and we will use this information to derive efficient station keeping strategies. Finally we will check the robustness of these strategies including different sources of errors in our simulations.     

NanoSail-D: A solar sail demonstration mission

In the early to mid-2000s, NASA made substantial progress in the development of solar sail propulsion systems. Solar sail propulsion uses the solar radiation pressure exerted by the momentum transfer of reflected photons to generate a net force on a spacecraft. To date, solar sail propulsion systems were designed for large robotic spacecraft. Recently, however, NASA has been investigating the application of solar sails for small satellite propulsion. The NanoSail-D is a subscale solar sail system designed for possible small spacecraft applications. The NanoSail-D mission flew on board the ill-fated Falcon Rocket launched August 2, 2008, and due to the failure of that rocket, never achieved orbit. The NanoSail-D flight spare is ready for flight and a suitable launch arrangement is being actively pursued. This paper will present an introduction solar sail propulsion systems and an overview of the NanoSail-D spacecraft.     

Mission analysis and systems design of a near-term and far-term pole-sitter mission

This paper provides a detailed mission analysis and systems design of a near-term and far-term pole-sitter mission. The pole-sitter concept was previously introduced as a solution to the poor temporal resolution of polar observations from highly inclined, low Earth orbits and the poor high-latitude coverage from geostationary orbit. It considers a spacecraft that is continuously above either the north or south pole and, as such, can provide real-time, continuous and hemispherical coverage of the polar regions. Being on a non-Keplerian orbit, a continuous thrust is required to maintain the pole-sitter position. For this, two different propulsion strategies are proposed, which result in a near-term pole-sitter mission using solar electric propulsion (SEP) and a far-term pole-sitter mission where the SEP thruster is hybridized with a solar sail. For both propulsion strategies, minimum propellant pole-sitter orbits are designed. In order to maximize the spacecraft mass at the start of the operations phase of the mission, the transfer from Earth to the pole-sitter orbit is designed and optimized assuming either a Soyuz or an Ariane 5 launch. The maximized mass upon injection into the pole-sitter orbit is subsequently used in a detailed mass budget analysis that will allow for a trade-off between mission lifetime and payload mass capacity. Also, candidate payloads for a range of applications are investigated. Finally, transfers between north and south pole-sitter orbits are considered to overcome the limitations in observations due to the tilt of the Earth's rotational axis that causes the poles to be alternately situated in darkness. It will be shown that in some cases these transfers allow for propellant savings, enabling a further extension of the pole-sitter mission.     

Spacecraft Injection into a Heliocentric Terrestrial Orbit

We consider the problem of injection of a spacecraft into the heliocentric Earth's orbit ahead and/or behind the Earth by 60° and 120° in heliographic longitude. The range of solar and astrophysical problems for which these orbits are necessary is reviewed. The variants of injection into heliocentric orbits work from a low around-Earth orbit with one turn-on of the engine in this orbit and one turn-on at the end of the injection trajectory. In this case, it turns out to be more profitable to put spacecraft into orbit for three or even four revolutions of the Earth about the Sun. The velocities necessary for the start from a low around-Earth orbit, the velocities at the final point of injection, and the fuel mass (relative to the spacecraft mass) necessary for injection are estimated. The problems for which injection to similar orbits is executed, using the low-thrust engine and with a combined regime of injection, are also considered.