Microscopic Approach to Analyze Solar-Sail Space-Environment Effects

Roman Ya. Kezerashvili and Gregory L. Matloff

Physics Department, New York City College of Technology,

The City University of New York
300 Jay Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201, USA
Email: [email protected] [email protected]

(31 December 2008)

Abstract

Near-sun space-environment effects on metallic thin films solar sails as well as hollow-body sails with inflation fill
gas are considered. Analysis of interaction of the solar radiation with the solar sail materials is presented. This
analysis evaluates worst-case solar radiation effects during solar-radiation-pressure acceleration. The dependence of
the thickness of solar sail on temperature and on wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum of solar radiation is
investigated. Physical processes of the interaction of photons, electrons, protons and α-particles with sail material
atoms and nuclei, and inflation fill gas molecules are analyzed. Calculations utilized conservative assumptions with
the highest values for the available cross sections for interactions of solar photons, electrons and protons with atoms,
nuclei and hydrogen molecules. It is shown that for high-energy photons, electrons and protons the beryllium sail is
mostly transparent. Sail material will be partially ionized by solar UV and low-energy solar electrons. For a hollow-
body photon sail effects including hydrogen diffusion through the solar sail walls, and electrostatic pressure is
considered. Electrostatic pressure caused by the electrically charged sail’s electric field may require mitigation since
sail material tensile strength decreases with elevated temperature.

1. Introduction energetic particle events can have a significant effect

both on the operations and design of a solar sail
The solar sail is one of the very few proposed space- spacecraft. The high near-Sun flux of ionizing solar
propulsion methods that may eventually be applied to radiation—gamma rays, X-rays, and ultraviolet (UV)—
interstellar exploration and travel [1,2]. For such an presents other design issues. The near-Sun space
application, the sail must be deployed as close to the environment is very diverse including of all
Sun as possible. A solar sail can generate a high cruise electromagnetic radiation frequencies, energetic
speed by using a close solar approach since the charged particles, plasmas, dust, micrometeoroids and
dynamic efficiency of the solar sail as a propelling debris. The aspects of the space environment we
device increases as the inverse square of the distance concern ourselves with here include the electromagnetic
from the Sun increases. It is necessary therefore, to use radiation and energetic electrons, protons and α-
sail materials that are highly reflective, low mass, and particles and their interaction with a solar sail material.
heat tolerant [3], when determining the maximum The paper is organized as follows: In Sections 2 and 3
reachable near-Sun region for the solar sail spacecraft we discussed the sail types, near-Sun space-
trajectory perihelion. environment effects and structure of the Sun radiation.
But that is not the entire story. The near-Sun Requirements for a thickness of solar sail material and
environment is a very dynamic place. As well as a high its dependence on the frequency of the solar radiation
photon flux, there is a stream of electrically charged and temperature of a solar sail material through the
particles that is ejected from the Sun. At close electrical conductivity and the dielectric constant
perihelion distances, this corpuscular part of solar implicit dependence on the frequency and the
radiation will be much greater than at Earth’s solar temperature dependence of the conductivity are
location. This part of solar radiation is highly variable presented in Sec. 4. In Sec. 5 we investigated the
in terms of both velocity and density. interaction of the electromagnetic and corpuscular parts
The interactions of solar-sail material with positive and of solar radiation with a solar sail. A diffusion of
negative Sun-generated ions must therefore be inflation gas in hollow-body sail is presented in Sec. 6.
considered by interstellar mission planners. Solar Conclusions follow in Section 7.

1
2. Sail Types and Space-Environment Effects hundreds of MeV. The energy spectrum of the solar
protons extends from 0.2 keV to a few tens of keV for
Researches in sundiving solar sails have led to solar wind and coronal mass ejection protons and up to
consideration of many sail materials and configurations. a few GeV for solar flare protons.
Broadly speaking, there are two basic classes of solar- Thus, we can conclude that basic components of the
sail configurations with applicability to interstellar solar radiation that will interact with the solar sail are
travel. The first class includes “puller” sails, such as the electromagnetic radiation with energy from a few tenths
parachute sail, which drags payload behind a single of eV to hundreds of MeV, and electrons and protons in
sheet of hyper-thin solar-sail material. The payload is the energy spectrum from a few tenths of eV to
attached to the sail by strong cables. The second class hundreds of MeV and up to GeV.
includes “pusher” sails such as the hollow-body or Solar electromagnetic radiation, electrons and protons
pillow sail [4, 5]. In this class, the sail is an inflatable will interact with the solar sail in two manners: with the
structure containing a suitable inflation gas to maintain foil of the sail and with the suitable inflation gas for the
sail internal pressure. Unlike the parachute sail, which hollow-body solar sail. The interaction of the solar
pulls the payload as it accelerates by solar radiation electromagnetic radiation with the solar sail not only
pressure, the accelerating hollow-body sail pushes accelerates the spacecraft but also induces the diversity
against the payload. Although the requirement for a of physical processes that change the physical
double sail thickness renders the hollow-body sail more properties of the sail. As it is shown in Ref. 7, for high-
massive than an equal-radius parachute sail, cables are energy photons, which are X - and γ -rays portion of
not required. the spectrum, the sail is mostly transparent. However,
As discussed in Refs. 6 and 7, both sail classes will be metallic sails, such as, for example, beryllium sails, will
affected by sail-material ionization due to interaction be partially ionized by the solar UV radiation, as is
with the solar-wind and high-energy solar-photon flux. shown in Ref. 7. In other words, almost 7% of the
Designers of pusher-sails must also consider the extraterrestrial solar electromagnetic radiation will only
interaction between the fill gas and the walls of the ionize the sail producing the surface charge distribution.
solar sail, therefore a diffusion of the fill gas through The visible wavelengths of the incident extraterrestrial
the walls of the hollow-body sail. solar electromagnetic radiation are mostly reflected by
the solar sail depending on the coefficient of reflection
3. Structure of Solar Radiation of the solar sail material. But a part of the visible
radiation as well as the infrared portion of the spectrum
Let us consider the components of the solar radiation with wavelengths greater than 780 nm will be mostly
that interact with the solar sail. Solar radiation has two absorbed by the solar sail causing the heating of the sail
components: the electromagnetic radiation and and, therefore, increase of its temperature. For the
radiation of low- and high-energy elementary particles hollow-body class sails the diffusion of the inflation gas
like electron, protons, neutrinos and ions of light nuclei through sail’s wall with an increase of temperature is
emitted by the Sun. The solar radiation mainly results the other important issue that required a consideration.
from solar flares, a solar wind, coronal mass ejections Thus, the ionization, the heating of the sail and
and solar prominences. diffusion of the inflation gas are three major processes,
First we analyze the interaction of the electromagnetic which require mitigation and should be considered as
radiation with the solar sail material. The photoelectric the restrictions for the solar sail spacecraft deployment
effect, the Compton effect and creation of electron- trajectories at the perihelion of an initially elliptical
positron pairs are the main processes and they play a transfer orbit to a parabolic or hyperbolic solar orbit
crucial role in the attenuation of the ultraviolet, soft and depending on the lightness factor of the solar sail.
hard X-ray and γ-ray by a solar sail when
electromagnetic radiation interacts with the solar sail 4. Requirements for thickness of solar sail
atoms. When photons exceed the threshold for nucleon
knockout from solar sail material nuclei, a nuclear One of the key design parameter, which determines the
photoeffect occurs. All photons that produce the solar sail performance, is the solar sail areal mass,
photoelectric effect or create the electron-positron pairs which depends on the thickness and density of the sail
give up all their energy to the sail. material as follows:
The main sources of electrons and protons that interact
with the solar sail are the solar wind, coronal mass s = ρd , (1)
ejections and solar flares. The first two produce
electrons with energies from about 0.01 eV up to a few where d is the thickness of the sail and ρ is the density
hundreds of eV and the flares are a source of high of the sail material. A deployment of the sailcraft
energy electrons with energies from 1 MeV up to depends on the sail areal mass as well as the sail pitch

2
angle, which is defined as the angle between the normal based on the maximum reflection of the solar radiation
of the sail surface and the incident radiation. It is clear should be at least the following:
from Eq. (1) that to obtain a high performance sail we
should select among the materials with the same optical −1 / 2
properties, the material with low density and use a thin ⎡ ⎛ 2 ⎞⎤
−1 ⎢ ε (ω ) µ ⎜ ⎛ σ (ω , T ) ⎞ ⎟⎥
foil of this material for the solar sail. On the other hand, d =ω ⎜ 1 + ⎜⎜ ε (ω )ω ⎟⎟ − 1⎟⎥ , (2)
⎢ 2 ⎜ ⎝ ⎠ ⎟
the ionization of a solar sail as well as the diffusion of ⎢⎣ ⎝ ⎠⎥⎦
the fill gas for a hollow-body sail also depends on the
thickness of a sail material. It is obvious that when
thickness of the sail increases the penetration of the where ω is a frequency of solar radiation, ε (ω ) and
solar radiation decreases and, therefore, the attenuation σ (ω , T ) are the permittivity and conductivity of the
increases. If the solar sail film is too thin it becomes metallic foil, respectively, and they are the functions of
transparent for the part of the spectrum of the solar the frequency. The permeability
electromagnetic radiation and, therefore, this part of T⋅m
solar radiation is lost for the acceleration of the µ = µ 0 = 4π × 10 −7 , assumed the solar sail
sailcraft. The question is how thin the foil for a solar A
sail should be that it would produce the acceleration of material to be nonmagnetic. Using Eq. (2) we can
the sailcraft based on the maximum reflection of solar estimate the minimal thickness of the solar sail required
radiation? For the electromagnetic part of the solar to achieve maximum reflection of the solar light for the
radiation electromagnetic fields inside a metallic given optical properties of the metallic foil. The
conducting foil decay rapidly with depth. The distance required thickness of the metallic foil is governed by
it takes to reduce the amplitudes of the electromagnetic three properties of the solar sail material: the
field by factor of 1 / e (e-folding distance) is a skin permittivity ε , the permeability µ , and the
depth and it is a measure of how far electromagnetic conductivity σ of the metallic foil. Actually, each of
wave penetrates into the conducting metallic foil. It is these parameters depends to some extent on the
obvious that the foil thickness should be always larger frequency of the electromagnetic wave and the
than the skin depth otherwise the solar sail material will temperature. Indeed, as its follows from Eq. (2) the
be transparent for electromagnetic radiation. Following minimal thickness depends on the frequency - apart
the standard electrodynamics approach [8] by applying from the explicit dependence on the factor 1 / ω and
the system of Maxwell’s equations for linear it also has implicit dependence, because the
conducting media we find the minimum foil thickness
conductivity σ (ω , T ) and dielectric function ε (ω ) are
that provides the maximum reflectivity and investigate
dependence of this minimum thickness on wavelengths frequency functions. Also the minimal thickness
of solar radiation as well as on temperature. As it is depends implicitly on the temperature through the
shown in Ref. 9, the condition for the thickness of the temperature dependence of the conductivity.
solar sail that performs the acceleration of the sailcraft The required thickness of the solar sail material is
Beryllium Titanium
135
54 54 130 130 135
54
52 52
1200 1200 130
52 125 125
50 50
50 125
48 120 120
48
48 120
1000 46 46 1000 115
Temperature, T, K

115
46
Temperature, T, K

44 44 115
44 110 110
42 42 110
42 105 105
800 40 40 800
40 105
38 38 100 100
38 100
36 36 95
36 95
34 34 95
600 34 90 90
32 32 600
32 90
30 30 85 85
30 85
28 28 80
28 80
26 26 26 80
400 24 24 24 75 75
22 22 22 400 75
70 70
70

0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4

0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4
Wavelength of Solar Radiation, λ , µm
Wavelength of Solar Radiation, λ , µm

Fig. 1. The dependence of the thickness of the solar sail foil on the solar radiation wavelength and
temperature for beryllium and titanium. The numbers on the curves indicate the thickness of
the foil in nm.

3
fluctuating depending on the temperature and frequency, temperature range about 700-900 K is about 40 nm for
therefore, we need to determine the minimal thickness beryllium and aluminum and about 110 nm for
of the sail material that would enable it to achieve the scandium and titanium. Using these thicknesses we can
reflection of all solar spectrum frequencies at the estimate the degree of ionization of the corresponding
temperatures of the near-Sun environment. metallic foil as well as find the diffusion rate of the fill
In studying the dependence of the sail material gas for a hollow body sail.
thickness on the temperature and on the solar
electromagnetic spectrum frequency (wavelength) we 5. Interaction of Solar Radiation with Solar Sail
use Eq. (2) and have assumed the solar sail material to
be nonmagnetic. The calculations were performed for The intensity of the electromagnetic radiation
beryllium and titanium. The results of the calculations penetrating a layer of material with thickness x is given
are presented in Figs. 1 and 2, where the values of the
by the exponential attenuation law
required thicknesses of the solar sail material providing
the best reflection of electromagnetic radiation are
plotted as a function of wavelength of the solar I = I 0 e − µx , (3)
radiation and temperature. The general behavior of
these dependences is such that the increase in the
where I0 is the incident photons intensity, x is a
temperature requires increases in the thickness of the
penetration distance in g/cm2 and µ is a mass
sail foil to keep its best reflection ability. The analysis
attenuation coefficient. The mass attenuation coefficient
of Figs. 1 and 2 shows that the thickness of the foil
exhibits the negligible dependence on the wavelength at
µ is a basic quantity used in calculations of the
low temperature and weakly decreases for all penetration and the energy deposition by photons (X-
wavelength ranges at high temperature. We also ray, γ -ray, bremsstrahlung) in materials. The mass
observe much stronger dependence of the minimal attenuation coefficient is proportional to the total
thickness on the temperature, especially in the range photon interaction cross section. The total cross section
corresponding to the visual part of the solar radiation can be written as the sum of contributions from the
spectrum. However, both solar sail materials exhibit principal photon interactions with a metal foil. As a
strong dependence of the thickness on the wavelength result for the linear attenuation coefficient we have
in the wavelengths range 0.2 µm < λ < 0.8 µm and
this dependence becomes stronger when temperature µ = (nσ ape + nZσ C + nσ pair + nσ npe ) / ρ . (4)
increases. The corresponding 3D plots for the thickness
dependence on the wavelength and temperature for
beryllium and titanium are presented in Fig. 2. Analysis In Eq. (4) n is the number of metal atoms in the unit
of the results of calculations shows that the minimal volume, ρ is a density of the solar sail material, σ ape
thickness requirement that provides the best reflection
and absorption of all solar radiation wavelengths for is the atomic photoelectric effect cross section, σC is

Fig. 2. The dependence of the thickness of the solar sail foil on the solar radiation
wavelength and temperature for beryllium.

4
 the Compton scattering cross section, σ pair is the cross The scenario with the maximum value of the cross
section for each process is conservatively assumed to
section for electron-positron production, and σ npe is better understand the processes' influence on the solar
the photonuclear cross section. The attenuation sail. To make a meaningful estimate of all effects of the
coefficient is a function of photon energy because each interaction of photons with the solar sail material
cross section depends on the photon energy. The first leading to its ionization, we consider the upper limits of
term in Eq. (4) is dominant for a low photon energy, the the experimental and theoretical values of the cross
second term becomes important for photon energy up to sections for all considered processes.
hundreds of keV, the third term plays the major role for Using the current photon interaction database of the
photons energy higher than a few MeV, and the last National Institute of Standards and Technology and the
term gives the dominate contribution for high-energy tables given by Hubbell in the International Journal of
photons when they are interacted with a solar material Applied Radiation and Isotopes [10] we calculated the
nuclei. Each cross section is a function of the photon mass attenuation coefficient for different candidates for
energy. Using the corresponding cross section for the a solar sail material considered in Ref. 11. Fig. 3
considered processes we can estimate the reduction of presents the energy dependence of the mass attenuation
the radiation through the solar sail. coefficient for photons of energy from 1 keV to 20
Electrons, protons and α-particles will also interact MeV penetrating through foil of different metals
with the solar sail foil. As well as penetrating through considered as a candidate solar-sail material. For
the foil they interact with molecules of the inflation fill photon energies above about 4 MeV, the energy
gas. At low energy, electrons scatter on the sail material absorption is mainly due to electron-positron pair
atoms and basic physical processes are the excitations creation; below 100 keV it is due mainly to the atomic
and ionization of the atoms of solar sail material. We photoelectric effect; and in the intermediate range, it is
can use Eq. (3) to determine the solar electron flux due mainly to Compton scattering. The comparison of
reduction with the coefficient of linear attenuation as the mass attenuation coefficient in beryllium,
aluminum, scandium, titanium, niobium and
molybdenum shows that in beryllium it is smaller than
µ electron = (nσ ex + nZσ i ) / ρ , (5) in the other metallic foils, for scandium and titanium
the coefficient almost the same. The same behavior can
be observed for niobium and molybdenum. Broadly
where σ ex is the sum of total cross sections for
speaking, we can attribute the smaller attenuation and
excitation processes in different states, and σi is the absorption in beryllium to the smaller density, -
sum of total cross sections for the ionization with beryllium has fewer electrons per unit volume than
excitation. The energy dependence of the cross section aluminum, scandium, titanium and niobium and hence a
results in the energy dependence of the linear photon is less likely to encounter an electron in a given
attenuation coefficient. thickness of material. However, the differences in
details between the shapes of the curves in Fig. 3 must
103 be attributed to the differences of the electrons
Beryllium arrangements in aluminum (1s²2s²2p63s²3p¹), scandium
Aluminum
Scandium
(1s²2s²2p63s²3p63d14s2), titanium
102
(1s²2s²2p63s²3p63d24s2), niobium
Mass attenuation coefficient, m2/kg

Titanium
Niobium
Molybdenum (1s²2s²2p63s²3p63d104s24p6d45s1), and in beryllium
101 (1s²2s²) atoms. The scandium and titanium differ only
in the number of electrons in the 3d subshell and since
100
their properties are mainly due to their 4s electrons the
energy dependence of the mass attenuation coefficients
are quite similar. It is important to mention that when
10-1 the energy of a photon increases from 1 keV to 10 keV
the coefficients decreases by the factor 10³. For photon
10-2
energies more than about 130 keV the mass attenuation
coefficient is almost the same for all solar-sail material
considered. In other words, for this energy region there
10-3
10-3 10-2 10-1 100 101 2x10 1
is no distinction between all materials considered as a
Photon energy, MeV candidate for a solar sail and they attenuate photon
Fig. 3. The mass attenuation coefficient as a equally.
function of photon energy, for six We studied the dependence the ratio I/I₀ on the
different candidate solar-sail materials. thickness of the solar sail foil for the different photons

5
 1.2
attenuation coefficients for the corresponding
processes. Results of these calculations are presented in
1 Fig. 4. The results indicate that the sail ionization
through electrons impact is relatively much smaller
0.8 than by UV radiation and reduction of the low-energy
electrons proceeds through the elastic and inelastic
scattering of the electrons on the beryllium foil. More
Ratio I/I 0

0.6
than 80% to 95% of the impact electrons, depending on
the foil thickness, will penetrate the sail and interact
0.4
Attenuation of 54 KeV photons by ionization
with inflation gas molecules through inelastic scattering
Attenuation
Attenuation
of
of
100 eV photons by ionization
50 eV photons by ionization
with excitation in different states and processes of
0.2 Attenuation
Attenuation
of
of
10 eV photons by ionization
50 eV electrons by ionization
ionization in case of the hollow-body sail.
Attenuation of 10 eV electrons by exitation
Now let us consider the interaction of protons and α-
0
0 10 20 30 40 50
particles with the solar sail material. When electrons
Be ryllium Foil Thickne ss x, nm
protons and α-particles pass through the sail material
Fig. 4. Dependence of the ratio I/I0 on the there is the energy loss for electrons, protons and α-
thickness of beryllium foil for different particles. For electrons, this energy loss is the result of
photon and electron energies. collisions with background atomic electrons and
bremsstrahlung radiation when they are strongly
energies. As the example we illustrate this for beryllium deflected by the nuclei of solar sail material atoms. For
foil. Fig. 4 shows the results of the calculation of the protons and α-particles, it is caused by electronic and
dependence of this ratio on the thickness of the nuclear collisions. The Bethe formula [12] gives the
beryllium foil for the different photons energies. For collisional stopping power for relativistic electrons.
UV radiation (10 eV) about 55 % of the incident flux Using the energy loss rate, the stopping range for
intensity will ionize the 40 nm beryllium foil and for 50 electrons, protons and α-particles can be determined.
eV and 100 eV photons only 18 % and 4 % of incident Fig. 5 presents the stopping range for protons and α-
photons will interact with the solar sail. For higher particles of various energies for a different candidate
energy photons the beryllium solar sail will be solar-sail material. We use the data from the ESTAR
transparent. When the foil thickness increases the and ASTAR database [13] and the program, which
degree of ionization increases also. For example, for the calculates the stopping range for protons and α-
50 nm thickness foil about 60% UV will ionize the sail particles in different candidates for solar sail materials.
and the role of 54 keV radiation in ionization is only Comparing these stopping ranges for the different
about 4%. Thus, beryllium is highly transparent to X- candidate solar-sail material we can find for which
and γ-ray, but the processing and use of beryllium is
energies for protons and α-particles the solar sail is
risky due to potential toxicity.
transparent. For example, 3.70×10-6g/cm2 is the range
For calculation of the linear attenuation coefficient for
for 20 nm beryllium foil and we can conclude that the
electrons related to the excitation processes we used the
total cross sections for elastic and excitations scattering beryllium sail wall is transparent to protons and α-
particles with energy higher than 10 keV.
from Ref. [23] and for the linear attenuation coefficient
As a result of ionization processes produced mostly by
related to the ionization with excitation processes we
UV radiation and also by the solar electrons, protons
used the best available cross sections for electron
impact ionization of Be atoms from Ref. [24]. Our and α-particles the solar sail is gaining a positive
study Ref. 6 indicate that the linear attenuation electric charge. As it is shown in Ref. 7 the solar
coefficient for the ionization with excitation processes electrons recombination with sail material positive ions
is relatively smaller than for the excitation processes can not neutralize the solar sail. The relative rates of the
and has the maximum at 50 eV. For electron energies ionization and recombination processes determine the
more than 200 eV the attenuation coefficients for both establishment of the positive charge on the solar sail,
processes are comparable. We used available which constantly increase during the perihelion pass.
theoretical and experimental data for the total cross The ionized sail may have one advantage for both
sections for excitation and ionization with excitation classes of solar sails related to the electrical propulsion
processes to find the reduction of low-energy electrons by the solar wind, in other words, for sailing in the solar
flux in the beryllium foil. wind, as well as one disadvantage related to the
To make the most conservative prediction of the electrostatic pressure in the case of a hollow-body solar
dependence of the ratio I/I0 on the thickness of the sail. In Ref. 14 proposed an electrical sail and analyzed
beryllium foil for the excitations and ionization an interplanetary spacecraft consisting of a positively
processes, we use the maximum value of the charged grid that electrically reflects incident solar
wind protons and an onboard device that maintains the

6
 104 where ε 0 is the permittivity of free space. Electrostatic
Range for protons, g/cm2
103 Beryllium
a pressure acting on the surface of the sail always acts
2 Aluminum
10 outward. In Ref. 7 we found that for beryllium hollow-
Titanum
101 Molybdenum body solar sail P = 59.6 MPa. It is about the same as
100 Tungsten the tensile strength of beryllium at temperature 800 0C.
10-1 The tensile strength depends on the temperature. When
10-2 temperature increases the tensile strength of materials
10-3 usually decreases. Hence, the electrostatic pressure can
10-4 exceed the solar sail material’s tensile strength, and
10-5 therefore the surface of the hollow-body solar sail may
2x10 -6 fragment. This effect can be visualized by charging up
10-3 10-2 10-1 100 101 102 103 104 soap bubbles or spherical rubber balloon: the additional
Kinetic energy of proton, MeV electrostatic pressure eventually causes them to burst.

102 6. Diffusion of inflation gas in hollow-body sail

Range for α-particles, g/cm2

Berylium
101 Aluminum b
0
Different processes occur in the inflation fill gas within
10 Titanum the solar sail. A fraction of fill gas molecules striking
Molybdenum the inner surface of the sail are directly scattered back.
10-1 Tungsten
The number of molecules promptly returned back by
10-2
this scattering process depends on their incident
10-3 energy, therefore on the temperature of the gas, as well
10-4 as the type of material of the sail walls. The fill gas
molecules that are stopped in the sails walls have
10-5 several possible fates. Previously existing defects,
10-6 defects caused by the energetic solar electrons and
10-3 10-2 10-1 100 101 102 103 protons may trap hydrogen. These traps are defined by
Kinetic energy of α-particle, MeV the maximum range of the incident hydrogen. The
traps eventually become saturated, and the untrapped
Fig. 5. The energy dependence of the stopping gas diffuses, going deeper into the sail walls’ material
range for the protons (a) and α-particles or in to space. Below, we consider the atomic diffusion
(b) for a different candidate solar-sail. - the process whereby the random thermally-activated
grid’s potential. As it is shown above in our case as a gas atoms and ions result in net transport through the
result of UV ionization the solar sail naturally gains the sail foil. In other words, gas molecules, atoms and ions
positive potential which will deflect the proton inside the hollow-body solar sail can diffuse through
component of the solar wind and therefore, extract the wall of the sail and escape, resulting in the sail
momentum from the solar wind plasma. However, the slowly deflating. The diffusion equation contains two
proton component of the solar wind induced gas-metal interaction parameters, the diffusivity D ,
acceleration is considerably less that the radiation- which describes the gas transport in a concentration
pressure acceleration [7] and be a minor perturbation gradient and the heat transport Q , which describes the
rather than a large effect. On the other hand this minor gas transport in a temperature gradient. However,
perturbation should be taken into consideration for the because the thickness of the solar sail wall is about a
calculation of the trajectory for an interstellar sailcraft. few hundred atomic layers the temperature gradient is
The ionized sail surface has a surface charge negligibly small and in a very good approximation we
distribution which is producing the electric field E. The can consider that ∇T = 0 and neglect the term
electric field of the solar sail very near the surface can describing the heat transport through the walls in the
be considered as an electric field produced by an diffusion equation. There is a concentration gradient in
infinite plane. The electric field inside of the hollow- the sail wall, because the sail is filled initially with gas,
body solar sail according to Gauss’ law is zero. In the and there is no gas on the outside. Therefore, the rate of
presence of an electric field, a surface charge on the sail transport of hydrogen is governed by the diffusivity and
will experience a force per unit area which is an the concentration gradient. For simplicity let us
outward electrostatic pressure which can also be written consider the diffusion flux perpendicular to the wall and
as Fick’s first law for the a diffusion flux can be written in
ε0 the form
P= E2 , (6)
2

7
 −
ED
dC body solar sail. Equation (8) shows the dependence of
j = D0 e kT . (7) the gas diffusion flux on the temperature and thickness
dx of the wall for the solar sail. The total molecular flux
where D0 is the diffusion coefficient or diffusivity, C rate of the gas through the all sail area is
is the concentration which are measured in mol/m3 and dM rr
m2/s, respectively, T is absolute temperature of the
= ∫∫ j n dS , (9)
r dt
hydrogen gas, E D is the activation energy for the where n is the normal to the sail surface S . Using Eq.
diffusion and k = 8.63 × 10 −5 eV/K is the (8) and considering that the hollow-body sail has the
Boltzmann’s constant. shape of a disk of radius of R and height h , we can
The fill gas is in thermal equilibrium with the solar sail calculate the total gas mass flux rate given by Eq. (9).
walls. Therefore, the gas temperature will be equal to Let’s also mention that using Eqs. (8) and (9) we can
the temperature of the solar sail foil. In the worst case determine the dependence of the total molecular flux
scenario this temperature should be close to the sail rate of the gas on the temperature of the solar sail
material melting temperature. material. As an example, we performed calculations for
The thickness of the hollow-body solar sail for the Sun- the hollow-body beryllium sail considered in Ref. 5 for
facing surface and the anti-solar sail surface may differ the thickness of the beryllium foil of 40 nm which
depending on its design [4, 5]. However, the thickness follows from our calculation in Sec. 4. Fig. 6 present
of the sail material will not exceed a few hundred the results of our calculations for the dependence of the
atomic layers. For such small thicknesses in good flux rate of the hydrogen on the temperature for two
approximation we can replace the derivative of the configurations of the sailcraft. We consider the different
concentration by the concentration difference over values of the diffusion activation energy E D and
thickness d, assuming that concentration of the constant D0 The experimental value of the activation
hydrogen atoms deceases uniformly and consider that
the outside concentration of the hydrogen for the energy E D and constant D0 for the diffusion of
diffusion flux is zero for both the Sun-facing sail beryllium depends on the purity of the beryllium
surface, and the anti-Sun solar sail surface, we can material used in the experiments and varies from 0.15
rewrite Eq. (7) in the following form eV to 0.36 eV and from 9 × 10 −12 m2/s to 6.7 × 10 −9
E m2/s, respectively [15-18]. We calculated the flux rate
− D Cin
j = D0 e kT , (8)
for different available sets of the diffusion activation
d energy and diffusion constant and presented in Fig.1 by
where Cin is the concentration of gas into the hollow- thin curves for configuration A and by thick curves for
configuration B. A general overview of these results
1027
shows that the diffusion flux rate strongly depends on
the temperature. When temperature increases from 400
1026
K to 1400 K, the flux rate increases by a factor of 104
and 103 for the solar sail configuration A and B,
Hydrogen flux rate, dM/dt, molecules/s

1025

1024 respectively, when in calculations used the diffusion

activation energy and diffusion constant from Ref. 16.
1023 Parameters from Ref. 15
Parameters from Ref. 16 For these parameters from Refs. 15 and 16, the
hydrogen flux rate is changing by a factor of 102 and
1022 Parameters from Ref. 16
Parameters from Ref. 17
1021 almost by a factor of 10 for the solar sail configuration
1020
A and B, respectively. Over temperature 500 – 1400 K,
hydrogen flux is changing more than three orders of
1019
magnitude for the diffusion activation energy and
1018 diffusion constant reported in Ref. 17 for the
1017 configuration A, as well as for the configuration B.
Hence, we can conclude that the results also
1016
200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 demonstrated the strong dependence of the flux rate on
Solar sail temperature, T, K the values of the diffusion activation energy and
Fig. 6. Temperature dependence of hydrogen flux diffusion constant.
rate for beryllium solar sail configuration Our approach allows us to estimate how much of the
A (thin curves) and configuration B (thick inflation fill gas should be carried by the hollow-body
curves) Results of calculations are given solar sail for the acceleration phase in the near-Sun
for the different parameters of diffusion space-environment. To illustrate that let us consider the
activation ED and diffusion constant D0. configuration A and B of the beryllium hollow-body

8
solar sail. The total amount of hydrogen molecules in body solar sail, but not from the outside, giving rise to a
the spacecraft configuration A and B is 9.2 × 10 30
and net outward force producing the electrostatic pressure.
22 The outward electrostatic pressure on the hollow-body
5.0 × 10 , respectively [5]. The acceleration time of sail surface can exceed the tensile strength of the solar
the sailcraft nearby the Sun is about 7000 s - 8000 s. sail material, and as a result, the surface of the hollow-
Using these values we can estimate the performance body solar sail may burst.
time for the solar sail. From Fig.6 it is easy to see that Our consideration of the worst scenario for the
negligible amount of the hydrogen filled gas will diffusion of hydrogen through the solar sail beryllium
diffuse through the walls of the beryllium sail for walls show that the diffusion flux rate strongly depends
configuration A for the temperature regime up to 1400 on the temperature. The results also demonstrated the
K, when we used in our calculations the diffusion strong dependence of the flux rate on the values of the
activation energy and diffusion constant from Refs. 15- diffusion activation energy and diffusion constant.
17. However the same analysis of Fig. 6 shows that the Thus, in our microscopic approach to obtain a high
sail will be deflated completely for configuration B performance solar sail as a first step, when the
when the temperature of the sail exceeds 400 K - 450 K perihelion of an initially elliptical transfer orbit to a
for the sets of parameters from Ref. 16. For the parabolic or hyperbolic solar orbit is found, is to select
diffusion activation energy and diffusion constant from among materials with the same optical properties, the
Refs. 15 and 17, the solar sail for the configuration B material with low density and find the thickness of the
will deflate completely when the temperature of the sail foil of this material based on the existing solar sail
walls exceeds about 1300 K. equilibrium temperature at the perihelion. Then for that
thickness of the solar sail we can determine the
7. Conclusions ionization degree of the solar sail material and find the
electric charge accumulated during the perihelion pass.
To find minimal required thickness of the solar sail for For a hollow-body solar sail for the given sail thickness
an acceleration of the sail craft in the near-Sun space we should determine the amount of the inflation gas
region the following important factors should be that will not diffuse through solar sail wall and
considered: the existence of a wide range of solar guarantee the perihelion pass. This approach can be
electromagnetic radiation frequencies, dependence of applied to a wide variety of materials, and sail
the electrical conductivity and dielectric function of a configurations utilizing metallic thin foils in the near-
sail material on the frequency and the temperature Sun space environment.
dependence of electrical conductivity of a sail material.
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