Solar sail attitude dynamics and control

Abstract

This paper describes some results of an attitude dynamics and control study for a solar sailing vehicle. This type of vehicle is currently under study and evaluation at JPL and has very high potential for interplanetary missions in and beyond the 1980s. Crucial to the success of such a vehicle would be the performance of its onboard attitude control system. Because of the vehicle's large size and its flexibility, vehicle deformations may have a potential for causing a degradation in vehicle performance. It may therefore be necessary for the control system to take into account the vehicle deformations as well as its rigid-body motions. Distributed parameter system analysis techniques are used in the paper to study certain fundamental aspects of such a control system for the sail vehicle. The techniques can, however, be more generally applicable to other large flexible vehicles.