Small Spacecraft to Support a Solar Sail Mission
- Paper number
IAC-07-B4.5.09
- Author
Mr. Carlos Niederstrasser, Orbital Sciences Corporation, United States
- Year
2007
- Abstract
Designing a spacecraft bus to support a solar sail mission requires conscientious use of mass allocation while still providing support for the sail and the mission payload. Orbital’s MicroStar spacecraft bus platform has the needed efficiency and flexibility to grow with solar sailing technology over time. This paper will outline the point design proposed for the Space Technology 9 Solar Sail Mission (ST9-SSM), and show what elements of that point design would evolve to support three solar sail missions currently specified by the NASA Helio-physics Roadmap: Heliostorm in 2017-2020, Solar Polar Imager (SPI) in 2027, and Interstellar Probe (IsP) in 2037. In order to support the technology demonstration ST9-SSM mission, the spacecraft bus must provide propulsion sufficient to reach the mission orbit and deorbit from it at mission end of life, as well as sufficient attitude control authority to ensure a safe technology demonstration. Once solar sail technology has been demonstrated, each of the later missions using solar sails would become more independent of spacecraft bus propulsion and attitude control, allowing bus support to evolve into a highly efficient, low mass solution to support the mission payload.
- Abstract document