Dynamical analysis of a spinning solar sail

This paper discusses the orbit and attitude dynamics of a solar sail, and gives the sufficient conditions of a stable orbit and attitude coupled system. The stability of the coupled system is determined by the orbit stability and attitude stability. Based on the sufficient conditions, a spin-stabilized solar sail of cone configuration is proposed to evolve in the heliocentric displaced orbit. For this kind of configuration, the attitude is always stable by spinning itself. The orbit stability depends on the orbit parameters of the heliocentric displaced orbit, the ratio of the orbit radius to displaced distance and orbit angular velocity. If the center of mass and center of pressure overlap, it can be proved that the coupled system is stable when the orbit parameters are chosen in the stable region. When the center of mass and center of pressure offset exists, the stability of the coupled system can not be judged. A numerical example is given and the result shows that both the orbit and attitude are stable for the case. (C) 2011 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.