Post on 09-Mar-2018
The ST9 Solar Sail mission significantly enlarges the reach of strategic Heliophysics missions by enabling missions requiring high-perfomance propulsion such as Heliostorm, Solar Polar Imager, and the Interstellar Probe. These science missions help safeguard astronauts on the Moon from solar and heliospheric events, vastly improve our understanding of the Sun and space weather, and represent our first mission targeted at understanding the nature of interstellar space.
200 m WashingtonMonument
ST9 34.5 m
2010
Heliostorm100 m~2017
SPI170 m~2027
IsP400 m~2037
34.5m
OSC MissionOperations CenterDulles, VA• Spacecraft Bus• System Integration and Test• Mission Operations
LaRCHampton, VA• Structural Modeling
MSFCHuntsville, AL• Control Modeling• Design Validation and Test• Space Environ- ment Test
Greenbelt, MD• Project Management• Systems Engineering• Mission Assurance• Technology Validation• Education/Public Outreach
NASAGroundNetwork• 11 m Dishes - Alaska - Wallops
Tustin, CA• Solar Sail• Sail Electronics and Structure
Pasadena, CA• Sail Camera System• Education/ Public Outreach
Pasadena, CA• Thrust Estimation• Inflation/ Deployment Modeling
Sail Propulsion System • L'Garde• Metallized, ~1,000 m2 Mylar sail (1/50th thickness of a human hair)• Size equivalent to the infield of a major league baseball diamond• Inflatable-deployed, thermally rigidized booms
Mission:• Delta II RH-DPAF (also fully compatible with Pegasus XL)• Orbit: 1250 km altitude circular, dawn-dusk, Sun synchronous• After checkout, 2-month technology validation• Perigee-lowering at mission end for disposal
*** Proposed for ST9, September 2006; Not selected for ST9, April 2007. ***
Translating Stage• Changes center of mass for attitude control• Displaces bus mass in plane of sail by ± 0.4 meter• Competitively procured
Sail Camera System • The Planetary Society• 4 hub-mounted, engineering-class cameras
TDRSS(for critical event telemetry)
S-Band
S-Band
Spacecraft • Orbital• High Heritage MicroStar bus• GPS for orbit/thrust determination• 3-axis stabilized ACS• Onboard Hydrazine Propulsion• S-band Up: 2 kbps• S-band Down: 2.25 Mpbs• Li Ion Battery
ST9
NMP ST9 Solar Sail
humankind’s first practical solar sailIn the 17th century, Kepler observed comet tails and first proposed sailing from planet-to-planet on this solar “breeze”. The source of thrust for a sail would be sunlight reflected off the sail (not the high speed, charged particles we now term the solar wind). Maximum thrust will be 8 milli-Newtons, roughly equivalent to the weight of a typical business card (0.03 oz). This thrust can be used to raise (or lower) altitude by as much as 170 meters/orbit. For the much larger sails of the future, the thrust will be higher. This small force comes “free” with sunlight (no propellant is necessary), so a “Sailcraft” can continually accelerate over time to very high velocities.
POC Name, Organization: Timothy Van Sant, GSFCPOC E-mail: john.t.vansant@nasa.gov
http://nmp.nasa.gov/
Study Team Leader (TL): Timothy Van SantTL Organization: NASA Goddard Space Flight CenterPartners: GSFC, L'Garde, Orbital, In-Space Propulsion Technologies Project, JPL, LaRC, MSFC, The Planetary SocietyEPO Partners: GSFC, JPL, LaRC, MSFC, The Planetary Society
Deployment
Controland Thrust
Sub-scaleBoom Deploy
High-FidelityModels
Flight-validatedModels
High-Fidelity ModelsRefined by Ground Tests
Full-scale VacBoom Deploy
Ambient Deployof Flight System
Sail Deployin Space
Mission EndLRDATP
2007 2008 2009 2010 20119/10 1/11
TRL 5
2/08
TRL 6
8/09
TRL 7
10/10
Technologies Validated• Sail Deployment• Control• Thrust Performance
GPS
L’Garde Orbital Goddard Space Flight Center The PlanetarySociety
Jet PropulsionLaboratory
In-Space PropulsionTechnologies Project