Photonic spin control for solar wind electric sail

TL;DR

This paper proposes using centrifugally stretched photonic blades as a propellantless auxiliary propulsion method for electric solar wind sails, enabling spinrate control and mission flexibility.

Contribution

It introduces the novel concept of photonic blades for E-sail spin control, combining solar sail technology with electric sail propulsion.

Findings

Photonic blades can provide sufficient spin modification.

The approach is fully propellantless.

Feasibility and attractiveness of the solution are confirmed.

Abstract

The electric solar wind sail (E-sail) is a novel, efficient propellantless propulsion concept which utilises the natural solar wind for spacecraft propulsion with the help of long centrifugally stretched charged tethers. The E-sail requires auxiliary propulsion applied to the tips of the main tethers for creating the initial angular momentum and possibly for modifying the spinrate later during flight to counteract the orbital Coriolis effect and possibly for mission specific reasons. We introduce the possibility of implementing the required auxiliary propulsion by small photonic blades (small radiation pressure solar sails). The blades would be stretched centrifugally. We look into two concepts, one with and one without auxiliary tethers. The use of photonic blades has the benefit of providing sufficient spin modification capability for any E-sail mission while keeping the technology fully propellantless. We conclude that the photonic blades appear to be a feasible and attractive solution to E-sail spinrate control.