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Published in:
2014 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
Realistic Solar Sail Thrust
Authors : Bruce A. Campbell, Stephanie J. Thomas
Published in: Advances in Solar Sailing
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
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Before a solar sail will be used as a primary propulsion system for a space flight mission, many technical areas must be developed further. One of these areas concerns understanding the propulsion performance of a realistic solar sail well enough so that solar sail orbits can be confidently predicted to meet defined mission requirements. This paper identifies major contributors to solar sail thrust uncertainty, and analyzes the most significant ones to provide a better understanding of thrust generation by a “realistic” solar sail. Performance of representative “realistic” sailcraft are compared to similar “ideal” and “non-ideal” sailcraft to illustrate the differences.