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Design Rules and Scaling for Solar SailsUseful design rules and simple scaling models have been developed for solar sails. Chief among the conclusions are: 1. Sail distortions contribute to the thrust and moments primarily though the mean squared value of their derivatives (slopes), and the sail behaves like a flat sheet if the value is small. The RMS slope is therefore an important figure of merit, and sail distortion effects on the spacecraft can generally be disregarded if the RMS slope is less than about 10% or so. 2. The characteristic slope of the sail distortion varies inversely with the tension in the sail, and it is the tension that produces the principle loading on the support booms. The tension is not arbitrary, but rather is the value needed to maintain the allowable RMS slope. That corresponds to a halyard force about equal to three times the normal force on the supported sail area. 3. Both the AEC/SRS and L Garde concepts appear to be structurally capable of supporting sail sizes up to a kilometer or more with 1AU solar flux, but select transverse dimensions must be changed to do so. Operational issues such as fabrication, handling, storage and deployment will be the limiting factors.
Document ID
20050209955
Acquisition Source
Marshall Space Flight Center
Document Type
Preprint (Draft being sent to journal)
Authors
Zeiders, Glenn W. (Sirius Group Huntsville, AL, United States)
Date Acquired
September 7, 2013
Publication Date
April 25, 2005
Subject Category
Spacecraft Propulsion And Power
Meeting Information
Meeting: 41st AIAA Joint Propulsion Conference
Location: Tucson, AZ
Country: United States
Start Date: July 10, 2005
End Date: July 13, 2005
Sponsors: American Inst. of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NASA Order H-35186-D
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.

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