The solar sails are the spacecraft that are propelled by sunlight. The Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science (ISAS) has studied the solar sails, which are spinning and deployed by centrifugal force. One of the technological difficulties to be realized is how to design the spinning solar sail to maintain the stability while those huge membranes unfurl being deformed and oscillating. In this paper, an attention is focused on the out-of-plane oscillation and an analysis is presented about the dynamics so that the characteristic parameters are identified as for the stability of those spinning solar sails.
Stability of spinning solar sail-craft containing a huge membrane
