The Canadian Solar Sail Project
Abstract
Details are provided of the design of the Canadian solar sail spacecraft which is to compete with other participating countries in a race to Mars. This competition is to be held in 1992 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Columbus' historic voyage. The race is also intended to demonstrate and promote interest in solar sailing as a new propulsion technology. To be competitive in the race acceleration must be maximized. Maximum acceleration can be obtained by maximizing the area of the reflecting surface (the sail) while minimizing mass. The present configuration uses a spin stabilized sail composed of thirty radial vanes. Centripetal force will be used to aid vane deployment and to rigidize each vane. Three of the vanes will be variable pitch vanes which are used for spin control. The sail is made of aluminized kapton. The spacecraft will be launched with a spin about its main axis. The three variable pitch vanes will open first, reducing the spacecraft spin. This will permit the attitude sensing and control equipment to function. An offset mass is used to perform attitude control and sailing trim for the two axes of rotation within the plane of the sail. The third attitude control axis is controlled by the variable pitch vanes. A camera package will be placed on the spacecraft to observe spacecraft deployment.
- Publication:
-
Canadian Space Agency, 6th CASI Conference on Astronautics
- Pub Date:
- 1990
- Bibcode:
- 1990csa..procR....H
- Keywords:
-
- Canadian Spacecraft;
- Solar Sails;
- Space Exploration;
- Spacecraft Design;
- Spacecraft Propulsion;
- Competition;
- Mars (Planet);
- Spacecraft Control;
- Spacecraft Design, Testing and Performance