Acceleration of sails by thermal desorption of coatings

摘要

Beamed power can enhance solar sail mission possibilities. Beam heating of a sail until its surface coat sublimes or desorps can add far more thrust, roughly a factor of 1000. Beamed power from Earth can heat sails to temperatures > 1000K, both to drive them to high velocities and to simulate similar conditions for very near-Sun missions. We give theory and a microwave experiment displaying the phenomena. This capability could open many kinds of fast-start interplanetary solar sailing missions. The basic physics can apply to sails heated by lasers or microwaves, and to a wide variety of materials for laboratory studies.