GeoSail: A Novel Solar Sail Mission Concept for Geospace

摘要

GeoSail is a mission designed to utilize the versatility of solar sail propulsion in the exploration of magnetic reconnection and electron dynamics in the Earth's magnetotail. The GeoSail mission uses a low-performance solar sail to artificially precess the apse-line of a long elliptical Earth-centered orbit to match the annual rotation of the geomagnetic tail. This unique use of a solar sail will enable the GeoSail science payload to maintain a nearly constant presence in the geotail providing an exciting opportunity to probe the rapid dynamical evolution of energetic particle distributions in this critical region of geospace. The level of solar sail performance required for GeoSail is typical of that currently being considered for near-term technology demonstration missions, i.e. a 40mx40m sail with characteristic acceleration of 0.1 ― 0.15 mm/s~2. GeoSail is therefore capable of providing both technology validation and a unique science return from a first solar sail mission.