1
$\begingroup$

Sorry for my English. I'm not native speaker

I would like your advice in solar sail mission simulation. The purpose is to compare results with results in Wolfram Mathematica.

We have CubeSat with heliogyro solar sail. Its purpose is to raise the altitude of the orbit. Sail plain in the beginning of the flight is normally oriented to the Sun. We can't change orientation of it, but we can change its area. We do it when the velocity vector on the sunlight hitting direction vector changes sign.

The questions:

How can I realize an algorithm, which define moment when we need to change sail area?

How it is possible to consider sun radiation angle of incidence variation connected with Earth rotation around the Sun?

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
6
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ As it stands right now, your question is confusing and hard to read. Please clarify your question. $\endgroup$
    – WarpPrime
    Commented Apr 8, 2022 at 13:28
  • $\begingroup$ This is still hard to understand@Nikita $\endgroup$
    – Starship
    Commented Apr 8, 2022 at 17:17
  • $\begingroup$ For q. 1, are you trying to write an algorithm? What are its inputs? For q.2, do you mean the angle of sunlight hitting the sail, how that changes over 365 days? $\endgroup$
    – Camille Goudeseune
    Commented Apr 8, 2022 at 18:35
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Yes, for q1 I want to write some script. But I didn't find in GMAT HELP how to create own vectors in GMAT(for example vector of sunlight hitting in Earth Coordinate system). If have this vector, the task will become more simple and I suppose i can solve it. Inputs are altitude and Velocity vector. For q2. Yes, I mean the angle of sunlight hitting the sail, that changes over 365 days $\endgroup$
    – Nikita
    Commented Apr 8, 2022 at 21:15
  • $\begingroup$ I lack the expertise to answer the question, but I might be able to ask it in a different way. They have a spacecraft with a solar sail and control over pitch, roll, and yaw in an arbitrary orbit. They need to write a program that takes the orbital position of the spacecraft relative to Earth and the direction of incoming sunlight as inputs and outputs commands to tell the spacecraft what angle it should assume relative to the incoming sunlight to raise the orbit. $\endgroup$
    – ElizabethGreene
    Commented Apr 13, 2022 at 21:05

0

Reset to default

Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.