Solar sail station keeping of high-amplitude vertical Lyapunov orbits in Sun-Earth system

Farres, A. and Ceriotti, M. (2012) Solar sail station keeping of high-amplitude vertical Lyapunov orbits in Sun-Earth system. In: 63rd International Astronautical Congress (IAC 2012), Naples, Italy, 1-5 Oct 2012,

Abstract

This paper studies the stability and controllability of a solar sail on displaced, high-amplitude vertical Lyapunov orbits in the Sun-Earth system. In previous works, it was found that these orbits could be used for quasi-continuous coverage of the poles of the Earth. However, these orbits are unstable and an active control is required to remain close to them. Here we describe the types of instabilities for various orbits in the vertical Lyapunov family, and then propose two different stationkeeping strategies. One based on a linear quadratic regulator, and the other on the Floquet multipliers. We have selected three orbits, with different characteristics, for this study. It results that both methods manage control the solar sail, in the vicinity of the nominal orbits, and a comparison of the control requirements and performances is presented.

• Item Type: Conference Proceedings
• Additional Information: ISBN: 9781622769797
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Ceriotti, Dr Matteo
• Authors: Farres, A., and Ceriotti, M.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Systems Power and Energy