Mission applications and engineering challenges for solar sail spacecraft
Prof. Colin McInnes
University of Glasgow
Solar sails appear to offer the possibility of enabling new high energy mission concepts, and enhancing some existing mission concepts by significantly reducing launch mass. Future missions enabled by solar sails include a solar polar orbiter, planetary sample return and fast missions to the outer solar system. This talk will discuss near-term mission applications for solar sails and will identify the engineering challenges posed for deployable structures technologies, thin films and low mass spacecraft sub- systems. Recent ESA and NASA solar sail activities will also be discussed, including a proposed ESA sail deployment demonstration in low Earth orbit.
