SSVG — Solar System Voyager

Solar Sail

In SSVG, the Solar Sail is a light sail (or photon sail) that accelerate a spacecraft by the radiation pressure of sunlight. A great advantage of the Solar Sail is that it does not consume any propellant. However, it has several inconveniences as a thrusting device, as follows:

(1) Thrust Direction
If we assume the Solar Sail as a perfect plane mirror, the direction of the thrust is normal to the plane of sail, and the direction is not approaching to the Sun, but departing from the Sun every time.

(2) Thrust Direction and Magnitude of the Thrust
To change the thrust direction of the Solar Sail, we need to change the orientation of the sail, and the change in orientation results change in the magnitude of the thrust.

(3) Distance from the Sun
The magnitude of the thrust from Solar Sail is proportional to the radiation pressure of the sunlight. Because radiation pressure of the sunlight is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the Sun, the magnitude of the thrust from Solar Sail decreases inversely with the square of the distance from the Sun, when the spacecraft flies away from the Sun.

Despite the existence of those inconveniences, solar sails can play key roles for space flights in the future. Let us use SSVG to study valuable usages of solar sails.

whiskie14142/Shushi Uetsuki