NASA’s ACS3 mission will be the first Earth-bound solar-sail mission to fly so-called calibration steering laws. These steering laws are designed to expose the sailcraft to a variety of dynamical conditions to isolate the effects of different parameters on the dynamics, thereby facilitating the estimation of these parameters. This paper presents the set of candidate calibration steering laws of ACS3, highlighting their operational challenges and impact on the estimation of the sail’s reflectivity and specularity. The results show that, for a conservative GPS position accuracy of 10 m, accurate estimation of the reflectivity and specularity with uncertainties in the order of 10−4 − 10−3 can be achieved by flying any of the proposed calibration laws. However, ACS3’s calibration steering laws were also found to introduce operational challenges that may hinder their implementation for extended periods of time. In particular, the decreased power generation capability of solar arrays was found to be the most severe operational challenge for two out of the five ACS3’s calibration laws analysed. @en

Solar sailing is a propulsion method which takes advantage of solar radiation pressure (SRP) as main source of thrust. However, around Earth, other sources also affect the solar-sail dynamics, including planetary radiation pressure (PRP) and atmospheric drag. In literature, the accelerations from SRP, PRP, and atmospheric drag are modeled using different theoretical and idealistic models, which make use of simplifying assumptions to describe the near-Earth dynamical environment, the sail’s geometry, and optical properties. Consequently, sailcraft in orbit experience accelerations different from the theoretically predicted ones. In order to quantify these discrepancies between the real and modeled solar-sail dynamics, a first definition and preliminary assessment of a set of calibration steering laws is provided in this paper. These steering laws allow to characterize the solar-sail acceleration at every sail orientation and to identify the contributions due to solar radiation pressure, planetary radiation pressure, and aerodynamic drag. The analyses presented make use of NASA’s upcoming ACS3 mission as baseline scenario and account for different possible orientations of its orbit. The results highlight the benefits and implementation challenges of each steering law and the impact that they have on the orbital elements, with particular focus on the orbital altitude. @en

An overview of the NASA Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) technology demonstration project is presented. Descriptions of the ACS3 solar sail design, spacecraft systems, concept of operations, and ground testing are provided, along with a discussion of the extensibility of the ACS3 composite solar sail system technology to future small spacecraft solar sails and missions.

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This paper proposes the use of solar-sail technology currently under development at NASA Langley Research Center for a CubeSat rendezvous mission with asteroid 2016 HO3, a quasi-satellite of Earth. Time-optimal trajectories are sought for within a 2022–2023 launch window, starting from an assumed launcher ejection condition in the Earth-Moon system. The optimal control problem is solved through a particular implementation of a direct pseudo-spectral method for which initial guesses are generated through a relatively simple and straightforward genetic algorithm search on the optimal launch date and sail attitude. The results show that the trajectories take 2.16–4.21 years to complete, depending on the assumed solar-sail reflectance model and solar-sail technology. To assess the performance of solar-sail propulsion for this mission, the trajectory is also designed assuming the use of solar electric propulsion. The resulting fuel-optimal trajectories take longer to complete than the solar-sail trajectories and require a propellant consumption that exceeds the expected propellant capacity onboard the CubeSat. This comparison demonstrates the superior performance of solar-sail technology for this mission.@en

This paper proposes the use of solar-sail technology currently under development at NASA Langley Research Center for a CubeSat rendezvous mission with asteroid 2016 HO3, a quasi-satellite of Earth. Time-optimal trajectories are sought for within a 2022 – 2023 launch window, starting from an assumed launcher ejection condition in the Earth-Moon system. The optimal control problem is solved through a particular implementation of a direct pseudo-spectral method for which initial guesses are generated through a relatively simple and straightforward genetic algorithm search on the optimal launch date and sail attitude. The results show that the trajectories take 2.16 – 4.21 years to complete, depending on the assumed solar-sail reflectance model and solar-sail technology. To assess the performance of solar-sail propulsion for this mission, the trajectory is also designed assuming the use of near-term solar electric propulsion. The resulting fuel-optimal trajectories take longer to complete than the solar-sail trajectories and require a propellant consumption that exceeds the expected propellant capacity onboard the CubeSat. This comparison demonstrates the superior performance of solar-sail technology for this mission. @en