AN ATTITUDE CONTROL STRATEGY FOR SPINNING SOLAR SAIL

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is currently studying on the “Solar Sail” propulsion for future deep space explorations. JAXA has conducted extensive studies on spinner solar sail spacecraft system, utilizing centrifugal force to deploy the photon acceptance surface. The final objective is to realize the 7.5μm-thickness and 50m diameter polyimide membrane, combined with thin flexible solar cells, as the photon acceptance surface. Based on the simulator development done through several space and ground experiments on solar sail dynamics, this paper discusses the attitude control of this spinning solar sail system via conventional RCS controller, and also focusing on the utilization of reflectivity control devices attached on the sail, to control the spinning axis and rate of the solar sailer.