ON-ORBIT SAIL QUALITY EVALUATION UTILIZING ATTITUDE DYNAMICS OF SPINNER SOLAR SAILER IKAROS

摘要

This paper describes a method of evaluating sail quality utilizing in-flight attitude behavior of spinning solar sailer IKAROS. Since the successful deployment of the sail, IKAROS has received SRP which strongly affects both translational and rotational motion of the spacecraft. The authors have derived the “Generalized Spinning Sail Model (GSSM)” to reproduce observed unique attitude behavior of IKAROS. Following the previous work, this paper attempts to relate the GSSM with sail quality such as sail shape and flatness. An optical FEM model is constructed to evaluate the precise SRP effect on the spacecraft, and some candidates of deformed sail shape is reproduced which is consistent with the observed attitude motion. We also conclude by the in-flight attitude behavior that the surface roughness of the IKAROS sail is 0.33% at minimum.