Print Email Facebook Twitter Novel Solar Sail Mission Concepts for High-Latitude Earth and Lunar Observation Title Novel Solar Sail Mission Concepts for High-Latitude Earth and Lunar Observation Author Heiligers, M.J. (TU Delft Astrodynamics & Space Missions) Parker, Jeffrey S. (University of Colorado) Macdonald, Malcolm (University of Strathclyde) Date 2016 Abstract This paper proposes the use of solar sail periodic orbits in the Earth-Moon system for ob-servation of the high-latitudes of the Earth and Moon. At the Earth, the high-latitudes will be crucial in answering questions concerning global climate change, monitoring space weather events and ensuring sustainable development of these fragile regions. The polar regions of the Moon, especially the South Pole, are of great scientific interest as well as a potential destination for a future permanent lunar base. The existence of families of solar sail periodic orbits in the Earth-Moon system has previously been demonstrated by the authors and is expanded in this paper by introducing additional orbit families. The paper focuses in particular on orbits that are achievable with near-term solar sail technology and that originate by maintaining the solar sail at a constant attitude with respect to the Sun such that mission operations are greatly simplified. The results provide a set of constellations for continuous observation of the high-latitudes. For example, a constellation of two solar sail L2-displaced vertical Lyapunov orbits can achieve con-tinuous observation of both the lunar South Pole and the center of the Aitken Basin at a mini-mum elevation of 15 deg, while at the Earth, a set of two, so-called ‘clover-shaped’ orbits can provide continuous coverage of one of the Earth’s Poles at 20 deg minimum elevation. Transfer-ring these orbits to a higher-fidelity model, taking among others the eccentricity of the Moon into account, shows that these orbits still exist without any significant impact on their perfor-mance for high-latitude observation of the Earth and Moon. To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:7db023a1-c2fd-4c83-80ee-b57f41bd8c1b DOI https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2016-5373 ISBN 978-1-62410-445-9 Source AIAA/AAS Astrodynamics Specialist Conference: Long Beach, California, USA Event AIAA/AAS Astrodynamics Specialist Conference 2016, 2016-09-13 → 2016-09-16, Long Beach, United States Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type conference paper Rights © 2016 M.J. Heiligers, Jeffrey S. Parker, Malcolm Macdonald Files PDF 3_Conf_ASC2016_solarSailP ... Orbits.pdf 13.79 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:7db023a1-c2fd-4c83-80ee-b57f41bd8c1b/datastream/OBJ/view