The beryllium hollow-body solar sail: exploration of the Sun's gravitational focus and the inner Oort Cloud

TL;DR

This paper investigates the use of a beryllium hollow-body solar sail for interstellar exploration, focusing on its kinematics, thermal management, and potential scientific applications near the Sun's gravitational focus and the inner Oort Cloud.

Contribution

It presents a detailed analysis of a beryllium hollow-body solar sail's performance, including thermal and acceleration characteristics, and explores its potential for deep-space scientific missions.

Findings

Sail reaches 200 AU in 2.5 years

Sail reaches 550 AU in 6.5 years

Sail can explore the Sun's inner Oort Cloud and gravitational focus

Abstract

Spacecraft kinematics, peak perihelion temperature and space environment effects during solar-radiation-pressure acceleration for a beryllium hollow-body interstellar solar sail inflated with hydrogen fill gas are investigated. We demonstrate that diffusion is alleviated by an on-board fill gas reserve and electrostatic pressure can be alleviated by increasing perihelion distance. For a 0.1 AU perihelion, a 937 m radius sail with a sail mass of 150 kg and a payload mass of 150 kg, perihelion sail temperature is about 1000 K, peak acceleration is about 0.6 g, and solar-system exit velocity is about 400 km/s. After sail deployments, the craft reaches the 200 AU heliopause in 2.5 years, the Sun's inner gravitational focus at 550 AU in about 6.5 years and 2,550 AU in 30 years. The Be hollow-body sail could be applied in the post 2040 time frame to verify general relativity predictions regarding the Sun's inner gravitational focus and to explore particles and fields in the Sun's inner Oort Comet Cloud.