Solar Pressure
Geoffrey A. Landis
pressure for attitude control, by adjusting the solar array attitude to
the sun. Does anybody have a better reference on this? (Somebody just
asked me about the experimental use of the solar-sail effect, and I could
think of this one, but couldn't give any actual details or a reference.)
--
Geoffrey A. Landis
Hans Moravec
http://pdc.jpl.nasa.gov/Mariner10/Mariner10.html
Has most of
The Voyage of Mariner 10
Mission to Venus and Mercury
James A. Dunne and Eric Burgess
JPL 1978
NASA SP-424
(alas links to relevant chs 8&9 are broken)
It is linked to by
http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~diedrich/solarsails/links/
"Mariner 10, the first spacecraft to use solar sailing
techniques by using the pressure of sunlight
reflecting off of the solar panels for attitude control."
(as are some of your own publications)
> Subject: Solar Pressure
> Date: 24 Nov 1999 16:00:02 GMT
> From: "Geoffrey A. Landis" <geoffre...@sff.net>
> Organization: Ohio Aerospace Institute
> To: gherbert
> Newsgroups: sci.space.tech
> Geoffrey A. Landis
Hans Moravec
http://pdc.jpl.nasa.gov/Mariner10/ch7.html
The oscillation problem and the attendant risk of
losing all attitude-control gas if there should be
a loss of celestial reference resulted in a number
of changes in mission operations. One was the
cancellation of further roll calibration maneuvers;
another was the introduction of a period of " solar
sailing" during which the spacecraft roll, pitch,
and yaw axis rates and limit cycle magnitude were
reduced by differential tilting of the solar panels
to use the pressure produced on the panels by solar
radiation pressure in a controlled manner, like
wind on a sail. This technique significantly
reduced the amount of gas which would have been
used in the standard celestially controlled cruise
mode.
From:
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/papers/AsterAnts/paper.html
Solar sailing was also used by the Mariner 10
mission to Mercury. This was done by differentially
twisting the solar panels so solar pressure would
create torque around the spacecraft's roll axis for
attitude control.
From:
http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/istp/outreach/ans26.html
Mariner 10 spacecraft (1973) used its solar panels
to solar sail and save precious fuel. This made
possible a third encounter with Mercury.
David M. Palmer
the "To," "Cc," and "Newsgroups" headers for details. ]]
In article <81h222$s...@sulawesi.lerc.nasa.gov>, "Geoffrey A. Landis"
<geoffre...@sff.net> wrote:
> One of the Mariner missions, I believe Mariner 10, used the solar photon
> pressure for attitude control, by adjusting the solar array attitude to
> the sun. Does anybody have a better reference on this? (Somebody just
> asked me about the experimental use of the solar-sail effect, and I could
> think of this one, but couldn't give any actual details or a reference.)
In the future, FAME plans to use this technique for attitude adjustment.
I have heard that it is used for some comsats.
It was apparently relevant for the Mars Climate Observer. (One of the
reasons why the momentum wheel desaturation rocket (which was
calibrated in pounds rather than Newtons) was fired more often than
expected was because the spacecraft had an asymetrical solar panel
which caused a torque due to solar pressure.)
--
David Palmer dmpa...@clark.net
http://www.clark.net/pub/dmpalmer/
Henry Spencer
Geoffrey A. Landis <geoffre...@sff.net> wrote:
>One of the Mariner missions, I believe Mariner 10, used the solar photon
>pressure for attitude control, by adjusting the solar array attitude to
>the sun. Does anybody have a better reference on this?
Actually, there are two references, for two spacecraft.
Mariner 4 had little light-pressure vanes at the end of each solar array,
intended for attitude trimming and control. They did work, and provided
both static stability and trimming of the high-gain antenna light-pressure
torque, but they were too feeble to be useful against disturbance torques
like gas leakage, and generally they weren't really worth the trouble.
They were deleted from the later Mariners. (Ref: NASA SP-8027,
"Spacecraft Radiation Torques".)
Mariner 10 did indeed exploit its solar arrays for light-pressure attitude
control, in several ways. There are a number of accounts of this, I
believe; the first one I found on a quick look is in Oran Nicks's "Far
Travelers" (NASA SP-480).
>(Somebody just
>asked me about the experimental use of the solar-sail effect, and I could
>think of this one, but couldn't give any actual details or a reference.)
An interesting early survey paper is the Shapiro paper in Advances In The
Astronautical Sciences vol. 11 (Eighth AAS Annual Meeting), 1962. The
first in-space detection of light-pressure effects was in Vanguard I's
perigee variation; the first outright solar sailing -- excess of thrust
over drag -- was Echo I for a few weeks in February 1961, when its orbital
orientation was just right.
Oh, and the first controlled use of light pressure for propulsion is not a
solar sail at all, but an unintentional photon rocket (!!!). Nobody's yet
flown a controlled solar sail... but TOPEX/Poseidon has experimentally
maintained its ground track without engine firings, using an unexpected
and poorly-understood "body-fixed force" which is thought to be
light-pressure thrust from its thermal radiators. (Ref: Frauenholz et al
in the March/April 1998 J Spacecraft & Rockets.)
--
The space program reminds me | Henry Spencer he...@spsystems.net
of a government agency. -Jim Baen | (aka he...@zoo.toronto.edu)
Henry Spencer
David M. Palmer <dmpa...@clark.net> wrote:
>In the future, FAME plans to use this technique for attitude adjustment.
>I have heard that it is used for some comsats.
In general, use of light pressure for attitude control, or at least
attention to the issue, is not new. NEAR is designed to use it for
momentum dumping, and you'll find occasional references to this in their
status reports. And it's long been considered as a source of attitude
*disturbances*; it's often the dominant source of same for high-altitude
and deep-space craft.
Allen Thomson
Henry Spencer <he...@spsystems.net> wrote:
>
>Oh, and the first controlled use of light pressure for propulsion is not a
>solar sail at all, but an unintentional photon rocket (!!!). Nobody's yet
>flown a controlled solar sail... but TOPEX/Poseidon has experimentally
>maintained its ground track without engine firings, using an unexpected
>and poorly-understood "body-fixed force" which is thought to be
>light-pressure thrust from its thermal radiators. (Ref: Frauenholz et al
>in the March/April 1998 J Spacecraft & Rockets.)
Earlier this year there was a mini-flurry over anamolous tracking data
from a number of the deep-space probes (Voyager and Pioneer, I suppose).
There was some speculation that this was a sign of new gravitational
physics, but I believe the "photon rocket" effect is now thought
to be the more likely explanation.
BTW, this seems to be an opportune place to drop in my favorite example
of a vehicle that uses an inertialess (though not exactly reactionless)
"gravity drive" to offset drag effects: Cosmos 1833, NORAD 17589, which
is still longitude surfing more than a decade after launch.
Henry Spencer
Allen Thomson <thom...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>Oh, and the first controlled use of light pressure for propulsion is not a
>
>Earlier this year there was a mini-flurry over anamolous tracking data
>from a number of the deep-space probes (Voyager and Pioneer, I suppose).
>There was some speculation that this was a sign of new gravitational
>physics, but I believe the "photon rocket" effect is now thought
>to be the more likely explanation.
Last I heard, there are still arguments about that. Certainly it's an
effect which needs attention. However, note the word "controlled" in my
original comment. The TOPEX/Poseidon guys have gone beyond computing it,
and are/were actually making productive use of it for orbit control. I
think that's a first.
Jonathan A Goff
> Earlier this year there was a mini-flurry over anamolous tracking data
> from a number of the deep-space probes (Voyager and Pioneer, I suppose).
> There was some speculation that this was a sign of new gravitational
> physics, but I believe the "photon rocket" effect is now thought
> to be the more likely explanation.
This just gave me a thought. IIRC, photon drives have an
extremely high Isp (though they produce extremely low thrust,
hardly noticable in fact). Would it be possible to build a
cheapy probe that intentionally is made to have the radiators
act as a photon rocket? It isn't much thrust, but low thrusts
over long distances add up (the whole idea behind solar sails
and ion drives is low thrust over long time periods).
> BTW, this seems to be an opportune place to drop in my favorite example
> of a vehicle that uses an inertialess (though not exactly reactionless)
> "gravity drive" to offset drag effects: Cosmos 1833, NORAD 17589, which
> is still longitude surfing more than a decade after launch.
Sounds interesting. Would you care to elaborate?
Geoffrey A. Landis
I knew that the solar-sail effect had been used on Mariner, but didn't
have the reference.
--
Geoffrey A. Landis
Scientist and part-time science fiction writer
http://www.sff.net/people/geoffrey.landis
Benjamin Diedrich
> This just gave me a thought. IIRC, photon drives have an
> extremely high Isp (though they produce extremely low thrust,
> hardly noticable in fact). Would it be possible to build a
> cheapy probe that intentionally is made to have the radiators
> act as a photon rocket? It isn't much thrust, but low thrusts
> over long distances add up (the whole idea behind solar sails
> and ion drives is low thrust over long time periods).
What you'd have there is a photon rocket operating in infrared
frequencies. All your "reaction mass" needs to come from some sort of
power supply. If solar, you might as well cut out the middle-man and use
a light sail. If nuclear or RTG, then it would work far from the sun,
but the thrust would be pretty low: power / speed of light. A better use
might be radioisotope sails. Make a sail from a very thin radioactive
material which emits more radiation out one side than the other, and you
get a net thrust. This is discussed in the following two sources:
Robert Forward, "Radioisotope Sails for Deep Space Propulsion and
Electrical Power", J. British Interplanetary Society 49, 147-149 (April
1996)
Grodzovskii, G.L., Ivanov, Yu N., and Tokarev, V. V., Mechanics of Low
Thrust Space Flight, Israel Program for Scientific Translation Press,
Jerusalem, Israel, pp. 323-325, 1969.
Ben
--
_\\||//_____/|\ * * * Benjamin Diedrich
-- {} -----/ | \ |\* * died...@ugcs.caltech.edu
*//||\\ * /__|__\_|_\ * * http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~diedrich/
//~||~\\~~\_________/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Benjamin Diedrich
>
> http://pdc.jpl.nasa.gov/Mariner10/Mariner10.html
>
> Has most of
>
> The Voyage of Mariner 10
> Mission to Venus and Mercury
> James A. Dunne and Eric Burgess
> JPL 1978
> NASA SP-424
>
> (alas links to relevant chs 8&9 are broken)
>
> It is linked to by
>
> http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~diedrich/solarsails/links/
>
> "Mariner 10, the first spacecraft to use solar sailing
> techniques by using the pressure of sunlight
> reflecting off of the solar panels for attitude control."
>
> (as are some of your own publications)
Thanks. I was about to point that out myself.
Allen Thomson
Sorry for the delay -- we were out of town over the Thanksgiving
weekend and I'm just catching up.
Cosmos 1833 is one of the Soviet/Russian fourth-generation SIGINT
satellites which until recently have been the principal payload of the
SL-16 Zenit. They go into orbits at an inclination and period that
puts them into resonance with bumps in the Earth's gravitational field
and allows them to suck energy and angular momentum from the planet.
Apparently this is a delicate balancing act, since several other
satellites in the series have fallen out of resonance and are
experiencing secular decay. Cosmos 1833, however, has been in a
cycle of decay and climb since its launch in early 1987 -- currently
it's on its way up again, as shown by the negative drag term in this
recent TLE:
Cosmos_1833
1 17589U 87027A 99336.11401191 -.00000208 00000-0 -86631-4 0 6876
^^^^^^^^^^
2 17589 70.9050 327.3727 0007609 293.5389 66.4916 14.12476272655425
If you want to plot the long-term behavior, get the archived elements
for object 17589 at
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/QEDT/jcm/space/elements/disk3/17500/
Object 17590 is the associated SL-16 upper stage and also shows
something of the resonance effect, though not in its full-fledged form.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Jonathan A Goff
> Sorry for the delay -- we were out of town over the Thanksgiving
> weekend and I'm just catching up.
It's ok, no worries.
> Cosmos 1833 is one of the Soviet/Russian fourth-generation SIGINT
> satellites which until recently have been the principal payload of the
> SL-16 Zenit. They go into orbits at an inclination and period that
> puts them into resonance with bumps in the Earth's gravitational field
> and allows them to suck energy and angular momentum from the planet.
> Apparently this is a delicate balancing act, since several other
> satellites in the series have fallen out of resonance and are
> experiencing secular decay. Cosmos 1833, however, has been in a
> cycle of decay and climb since its launch in early 1987 -- currently
> it's on its way up again, as shown by the negative drag term in this
> recent TLE:
<snip>
Cool, will have to learn more about that.
Josh Hopkins
>
> Cosmos 1833 is one of the Soviet/Russian fourth-generation SIGINT
> satellites which until recently have been the principal payload of the
> SL-16 Zenit. They go into orbits at an inclination and period that
> puts them into resonance with bumps in the Earth's gravitational field
> and allows them to suck energy and angular momentum from the planet.
Aside from the fascinating orbital mechanics, this is interesting from a
launch vehicle standpoint as well. The early Zenit launches started
going to these orbits pretty much immediately, which is interesting
because they had to do a yaw steering manuever ("dogleg") to get to the
71 deg orbit. One might have expected that they would test the vehicle
out on something easy first. (Remembering that Zenit was the earliest,
and still one of the only, Soviet vehicles to be capable of boost-phase
yaw steering). A number of the early Zenit test flights did unusual
things, which caused western analysts to interpret some of them as
failures. Based on more recently available data, it appears those
interpretations may have been incorrect, though the story is far from
complete. Understanding exactly what they were trying to do helps
interpret the story. Is there a technical paper somewhere that
describes these orbits in more detail?
I thought at first that this might also explain why the Russians
continued to use Zenit after the collapse of the Soviet Union. I
assumed that it would be the only launch vehicle with the capability to
carry this class of payload to the right orbit. However, it looks like
Proton can too, using the Block DM to do an on-orbit plane change. In
fact it appears that the first two satellites in this series were
launched by Proton in 1984/85, when Zenit was just getting started. I'd
never noticed their significance before.