Flight Result and Analysis of Solar Sail Deployment Experiment Using S-310 Sounding Rocket

Paper number

IAC-05-C1.4.05

Author

Dr. Yuichi Tsuda, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Japan

Coauthor

Dr. Osamu Mori, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Japan

Coauthor

Dr. Shinsuke Takeuchi, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)/ISAS, Japan

Coauthor

Dr. Junichiro Kawaguchi, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)/ISAS, Japan

Year

2005

Abstract

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is currently studying on the “Solar Sail” propulsion for future deep space explorations. The solar sail is a means of propulsion utilizing the momentum of photons from the sun to propel the spacecraft, which implies that one can extend the scientific outcomes within the limited spacecraft resources constrained mainly by the launch capacity. One of the key technologies to realize the solar sail is how light and how compact we can make the photon acceptance surface. JAXA has conducted extensive studies on utilizing centrifugal force to deploy the photon acceptance surface, which we assume the most reliable and weight-effective solution to deploy the sail. The goal of this study we set is to realize the 7.5um-thickness and 50m diameter polyimide membrane, combined with thin flexible solar cells, as the photon acceptance surface that will be needed around the Jupiter orbit.
The dynamics study of the membrane is conducted by the computational and experimental approaches, and as a milestone of this dynamics study, JAXA has launched the S- 310 sounding rocket in the August 9, 2004, which tested two different shapes of membranes during the zero-gravity flight. S-310 is an ISAS (Institute of Space and Astronautical Science)/JAXA’s sounding rocket that flies up to 200km and supplies zero-gravity environment for about 3 minutes. 
The first type of the membrane looks like a “clover-leaf”, and another is like a “fan”. These two membranes, both of them have 10m diameter, were unfolded sequentially during the zero-gravity flight under the free spin condition, and their behavior was observed by onboard cameras. This paper mainly focuses on the “clover-leaf” solar sail, which was fully deployed successfully, and introduces the design, preflight analysis as well as flight results and postflight evaluations.
We also have developed the simulation model to numerically solve the dynamics of membrane. The model applies multibody system connected by springs and dashpots. This simple model shows very good corresponding with the flight result, which implies that the simulation model we have developed is valid for calculating the thin flexible structure under the centrifugal force.
In the presentation, the solar sail mission planned in ISAS/JAXA will be quickly reviewed, and then the S-310 flight result, the dynamics analysis of the clover-leaf sail and the parameter-tuning of the model based on the flight result will be shown.

Abstract document

IAC-05-C1.4.05.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-05-C1.4.05.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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