Concept Design and Intelligent Control of Solar Sail With Numerous Discrete Elements

Solar sail appears to be promising and effective spacecraft in interplanetary missions; however, performance degradation is inevitable during its long-term voyage, caused by materials wastage and accidents. This study designed a solar sail with numerous discrete elements (SSNDE) and an intelligent attitude control strategy (IACS) to prevent performance degradation and decrease its harmful effect. Structural analysis of SSNDE revealed improvement in reduction of system errors caused by irregular blade deformation and mechanical abrasion via employing numerous discrete elements with rigid boundaries. Furthermore, IACS enables SSNDE to maintain control ability despite the invalidation of a quarter of blades, which can be verified by simulation results. The SSNDE design and its IACS endow an effective solution to decrease performance degradation against material wastage and unpredictable accidents in interplanetary missions. Moreover, they reveal the potential of intelligent strategy in the future aerospace industry.