Questions tagged [solar-sail]
Questions regarding a 'sail' that can be attached to spacecraft to harness the sun's radiation to propel a ship in one direction or another.
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Does increased thermal emissivity decrease the effectiveness of a solar sail?
I am aware that increased emissivity in solar sails aids with heat reduction, however, I have done some research and found that the emissivity decreases the trajectory of the solar sail through the ...
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Solar Reflective Plasma Drive
I understand that solar sails have just recently been progressing to be of use. Could the solar sails be positioned to create a hyperbolic mirror to super heat a substance to produce propulsion along ...
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Has propulsion utilizing solar sail / drag effects of solar panels achieved orbital rendezvous? If yes, is there any utility for clearing space junk?
It has been proposed to use solar panels as solar sails and drag control by alternately feathering panels during different phases of orbit. It is claimed this can alter light pressure and drag enough ...
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NASA’s NIAC has awarded phase III funding for Diffractive Solar Sails. Demonstration mission in the works?
Diffractive lightsails use small gratings embedded in thin films to produce diffraction (which causes light to spread out when it passes through a narrow opening).
Diffractive light sails are a ...
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Slowing down 16 Psyche using an enormous solar sail to reach the inner planets
I am writing a sci-fi story and would like my science as hard as possible.
I was thinking of using the solar sail as a kind of sea anchor. Slowing down, the asteroid would move down to the inner ...
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Solar Turbines on the moon
Related to other questions about power generation on the moon.
URL's will be added shortly...
Given that force is experienced by objects hit by sunlight, such as a solar sail, would a turbine of some ...
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What is the optimal planetary sunshade arrangement?
To cool a planet down, one may place a sunshade between the planet and the Sun.
On its own, this is not stable due to radiation pressure, so a simple scheme like a big circular piece of aluminium foil ...
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What size of a solar sail would you need to overcome orbital decay? [duplicate]
Specifics of the question:
Placed into a 400km 0 inclination orbit
10 kg 20cm cube
Able to orient itself in any direction
Let’s say we want this satellite to be able to indefinitely orbit earth. ...
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Solar Sail mission
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 ...
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Solar sail for a 3U cubesat: do we have to buy one or can we design one?
We are working on a conceptual design for a 3U CubeSat with solar sail propulsion; we aren’t actually building one or buying one.
However we still need to make decisions like whether to build our own ...
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Why do "Relativistic Light Sails Need to Billow"?
The University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science blogpost How to Design a Sail that Won’t Tear or Melt on an Interstellar Voyage
links to two new Nano Letters papers:
Matthew ...
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Is there any more information available on JWST's "aft momentum flap"
I gather that the James Web Space Telescope (JWST) has just deployed its "aft momentum flap". However I cannot find much other information. It is described as the "aft" momentum ...
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To what extent could JWST continue to be useful after the propellant runs out?
I see a similar question answered, but this is perhaps more specific. There's a lot of description about the James Web Space Telescope (JWST) operation during its planned mission. But I gather JWST ...
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How will NEA Scout control its attitude during deep space flight & keep its camera steady without vibrations or damage to its 85 m² solar sail?
Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy's Fly Me to the Moon and Then to a Near-Earth Asteroid describes Near Earth Asteroid Scout (NEA Scout, or just Scout) a 6U cubesat that will be deployed from Artemis ...
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How many existing satellites have a continuously varying orbit because of human design decisions?
In the space community, there is an assumption that changes to an Earth satellite's orbit are infrequent (other than those due to atmospheric drag). Are there any known satellites designed to ...
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