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Article High Reflective Solar Sail after Cathcarth 6 3 06

AIAA-2006-4806

High Speed AB-Solar Sail*

Alexander Bolonkin
C&R, 1310 Avenue R, #F-6, Brooklyn, NY 11229, USA
T/F 718-339-4563, [email protected], [email protected], http://Bolonkin.narod.ru

Abstract
The Solar sail is a large thin film used to collect solar light pressure for moving of space apparatus.
Unfortunately, the solar radiation pressure is very small about 9 N/m2 at Earth's orbit. However,
the light force significantly increases up to 0.2 - 0.35 N/m2 near the Sun. The author offers his
research on a new revolutionary highly reflective solar sail which flyby (after special maneuver)
near Sun and attains velocity up to 400 km/sec and reaching far planets of the Solar system in short
time or enable flights out of Solar system. New, highly reflective sail-mirror allows avoiding the
strong heating of the solar sail. It may be useful for probes close to the Sun and Mercury and Venus.
Key words: AB-solar sail, highly reflective solar sail, high speed propulsion.
* This work is presented as paper AIAA-2006-4806 for 42 Joint Propulsion Conference, Sacramento, USA,
9-12 July, 2006.

Introduction
A solar sail is a thin film reflector that uses solar energy for propulsion. The spacecraft deploys a
large, lightweight sail which reflects light from the Sun (or some other source). The radiation
pressure on the sail provides thrust by reflecting photons. The solar radiation pressure is very small
6.7 Newtons per gigawatt. That equals 9.1210 -6 N/m2 at Earth's orbit (1 AU - Astronomic Unit =
150 million km) and decreases by the square of the distance from the sun. However, the solar light
pressure significently increases near sun and not far above it can reach 0.2 - 0.35 (up o.4 on Solar
surfice) N/m2.
Brief history. The conventional solar sail concept was first proposed by Friedrich Zander in 1924
[1] and gradually refined over the decades. The author proposed innovations and a new design of
Solar sail in 1965 [2, 3], and theory was developed in [3] -[6]. Author offers a new revolutionary
solar AB-sail. Main particularity this sail is very high reflectivity which allows the AB-sail to come
very close to the Sun without great heating and to attain high light force and high speed.
This innovation allows (main advantages only): 1) to achieve very high speed up 400 km/s; 2) easy
to control an amount and direction of thrust without turning a gigantic sail; 3) to utilize the solar sail
as a power generator (for example, electricity generator); 4) to use the solar sail for long-distance
communication systems.
Short information about Sun. The pressure of light equals P = 2E/c (where E is energy of
radiation, c is light speed (c = 3108 m/s)). The solar light energy at Earth's orbit equals 1.4 kW/m2,
but near a solar surface it reaches up to 64103 kW/m2 (it increases 47 thousand time!). As the
result the light pressure jumps up to 0.4 N/m2. The space apparatus can get significant acceleration
(up to 80 m/s2) and high speed up to 400 - 500 km/s.
Spectrum of Sun is presented in fig.1.

Fig. 1. Spectrum of solar radiation. is the wavelength [02.5 m], I is the energy density.

Note, the space mirror (sail) will not heat only if it reflects all solar spectrum ( = 0.2 3m).

Description and Innovations

Description. The suggested AB space sail is presented in fig. 2. It consists of: a thin high reflection
film (solar sail) supported by an inflatable ring (or other method), space apparatus connected to solar
sail, a heat screen defends the apparatus from solar radiation.
The thin film includes millions of very small prisms (angle 45o, side 3 30 m). The solar light is
totally reflected back into the incident medium. This effect is called total internal reflection. Total
internal reflection is used in the proposed reflector. As it is shown in [5] Ch.12 the light absorption
is very small (10 -5 10 -7) and radiation heating is small (see computation section).

Fig. 2. High reflective space AB-sail. (a) Side view of AB-sail; (b) Front view; (c) cross-section of sail
surface; (d) case of non-perpendicular solar beam; (e) triangle reflective sell. Notation: 1 - thin film

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high reflective AB-mirror, 2 - space apparatus, 3 - high reflective heat screen (shield) of space
apparatus, 4- inflatable support thin film ring, 5 - inflatable strain ring, 6 - solar light, 9 - solar beam,
10 - reflective sell, 11 - substrate, 12 - gap.

Another possible design for the suggested solar sail is presented in fig.3. Here solar sail has concave
form (or that plate is made like Fresnel mirror). The sail concentrates solar light on a small control
mirror 4. That mirror allows re-directed (reflected) solar beam and to change value and direction of
the sail thrust without turning the large solar sail. Between thin films 1, 8 there is a small gas
pressure which supports the concave form of reflector 1. Concentration of energy can reach 103
104 times, temperature greater than 5000 oK. This energy may be very large. For the sail of 200200
m, at Earth orbit the energy is 5.6104 kW. This energy may be used for apparatus propulsion or
other possibilities (see [5]), for example, to generate electricity. The concave reflector may be also
utilized for long-distance radio communication.

Fig. 3. AB highly reflective solar sail with concentrator. (a) side view; (b) front view. Notation: 1 - highly
reflective AB mirror (it may have a Fresnel form), 2 - space apparatus, 3 - high reflective heat screen,
4 - control mirror, 5 - reflected solar beam, 6 - inflatable support thin film ring, 7 - inflatable strain
ring, 8 - thin transparent film, 9 - solar beam.

The trajectory of the high speed solar AB-sail is shown in fig.4. The sail starts from Earth orbit.
Then is accelerated by a solar light to up 11 km/s in opposed direction of Earth moving around Sun
and leaves Earth gravitational field. The Earth has a speed about 29 km/s in its around Sun orbit.
The sail will be have 29 -11=18 km/s. That is braked and moves to Sun (trajectory 4). Near the Sun
the reflector is turned for acceleration to get a high speed (up to 400 km/s) from a powerful solar
radiation. The second solar space speed is about 619 km/s. If AB sail makes three small revolutions
around Sun, it can then reach speed of a 1000 km/s and leaves the Solar system with a speed about
400 km/s. Suggested highly reflective screen protects the apparatus from an excessive solar heating.
Note, the offered AB sail allows also to brake an apparatus very efficiency from high speed to low
speed. If we send AB sail to another star, it can brake at that star and became a satellite of the star
(or a planet of that solar system).

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Fig. 4. Maneuvers of AB solar sail for reaching a high speed: braking for flyby near Sun, great acceleration
from strong solar radiation and flight away to far planets or out of our Solar system. Notation: 1 - Sun,
2 - Earth, 3 AB Solar sail, 4 - trajectory of solar sail to Sun, 5 - other planets, 6, 7 - speed of solar sail.

3. Estimation and computation

1. Light pressure is calculated by equation
p (1 )

E
, for
c

1,

p2

E
,
c

(1)

where p is light pressure, N/m2; E is energy, J/m2; c = 3108 m/s is light speed; is reflective
coefficient ( = 0 1). At solar surface E = 64103 kW/m2 and p = 0.4 N/m2. At Earth's orbit the E
= 1,4 kW/m2 and p = 9 N/m2.
2. Temperature of sail equals
T 100

E
,
cS ( 1 2 )

(2)

where T is temperature, oK; E is heat flow, W/m2; is absorption coefficient of light energy, cS =
5.67 is coefficient, 0 < <1 is coefficients of blackness (emissivity) of two sail sides .
In [5] Ch. 12, Annt. #3 it is shown the absorption coefficient may reaches = 10 -7 for suggested
mirror. If it is taken =10 -4, 1 = 2 =0.9, the sail temperature near the sun will be about 500 oK.
That temperature is safe for many dielectric materials. The tangential sail speed in nearest point to
Sun reaches 600 km/s and time of AB sail abiding near Sun is only some minutes.
3. Trajectory and speed. The apparatus (sail) radial speed and flight time can be estimated by
equations [5] p.322.
1 1
pA
s
,
V 2 2as02 , Vmax 2as0 , a
, M S Ad , t
MS Ma
Vmax
s0 s

(3)

where: V is radial sail speed, m/s; Vmax is maximum radial sail speed, m/s; a is initial (maximal) sail
acceleration, m/s2; s is distance of the sail from a Sun center, m; s0 is minimal distance, m; p=(0.25
0.4) is maximal light pressure [Eq.(1)], N/m2; MS is mass of sail; A is sail area, m2; d =
(0.0010.005) is specific mass of sail, kg/m2; t is flight time from Sun to far planets, sec.
For example: If A = 200200 = 4104 m2, d = 0.005 kg/m2, p = 0.3 N/m2, Ma= 100 kg, that a = 40
m/s.
The period of an elliptic rotation of apparatus around Sun or planet may be computed by equation
T1

2
K

a13 / 2 , K g 0 s02 ,

(4)

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where T1 is period of rotation, sec; a1 is semi-axis of big axis of ellipse, m; g0 is planet (star)
gravitation at distance s0, m/s2, (for Sun K1.331020 m3/s2; g0274 m/s2; s0700106 m; for Earth
K 41014 m3/s2, g0 9.81 m/s2; s05.378106 m ).
Computations are presented in fig. 5-7. It can be seen that the AB sail can reach very high speed (up
400 km/s) at distance 10 millions km (<1 AU) from Sun and a purview of Solar System . The flight
time from Sun to the far planets is short time if we use the AB space sail (to Pluto about 150 days).
But we must add a time of braking (from 29 km/s to 1 km/s) and about 65 days moving from Earth
orbit to Sun (trajectory 4 in fig. 4).

Fig.5. Approximately radial AB-sail speed versus distance from Sun for several initial accelerations a
(acceleration at minimum distance from Sun)

Fig.6. Maximal sail speed versus initial sail acceleration.

Fig.7. Trip time from Sun to far planets versus a distance trip from Sun.

The main particularity of offered AB-sail-reflector is special layer with very high reflectivity in the
full main range of a solar spectrum (fig.1) from 0.1 to 5 m. That means the temperature of offered
sail will be significantly lower then the solar temperature and safe, allowable operating for offered
layers and AB-sail-reflector.
The other particularity is special selective coating which has high thermal emissions close to
absolute black body in widely range of solar spectrum.

Discussion
The conventional mirror or multilayer dielectric mirror [12] is useless in this case. They have a
high reflectivity only in narrow range of solar spectrum (Fig. 1) and decrease the adsorbed solar
energy up 2 -5%. The solar surface has temperature about 5800 oK and melts any dielectric layers
together with sail-mirror.

Conclusion
The suggested new AB sail can fly very close to the Sun's surface and get high speed which is
enough for quick flight to far planets and out of our Solar System. Advantages allow: 1) to get very
high speed up 400 km/s; 2) easy to control an amount and direction of thrust without turning a
gigantic sail; 3) to utilize of the solar sail as a power generator (for example, electricity generator);
4) to use the solar sail for long-distance communication systems.
The same researches were made by author for solar wind sail and other propulsion [7]-[11].

Acknowledgement
The author wishes to acknowledge Richard Cathcart for correcting the English and other useful
advices

References
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