A graphical approach to electric sail mission design with radial thrust

Trajectory Approximation for Low-Performance Electric Sail with Constant Thrust Angle

“…( 3) becomes an autonomous second-order differential equation in the variable r. A mission analysis for an electric sail subjected to a pure radial thrust is thoroughly discussed in Ref. [16] using the potential well concept by Prussing and Coverstone [17].…”

Attitude dynamics of an electric sail model with a realistic shape

“…The results discussed in Ref. [17], which are based on the assumption of a Sun-facing sail [19,20], show that the net thrust is aligned with the Sun-spacecraft direction, while the torque is zero. In that configuration, the equilibrium shape of each tether is well approximated by a natural logarithmic arc, provided that the E-sail spin rate is sufficiently high.…”

Formation flying for electric sails in displaced orbits. Part I: Geometrical analysis

“…as 1/r 2 ). Due to this peculiarity, a number of mission scenarios have been analyzed using an E-sail as the primary propulsion system [4,5,6], especially for what concerns the preliminary analysis of interplanetary transfers where the problem is formulated within a time-optimal framework [7,8].…”