Nanosatellite swarm missions in low Earth orbit using laser propulsion

Felicetti, Leonard; Santoni, Fábio

doi:10.1016/j.ast.2012.08.005

Cited by 23 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…( 1) and ( 9) into Eqs. (10), we can derive the change rates of orbital elements as (11) We define a characteristic angle = + dir(sun) to describe the orientation of the spacecraft respect to the Sun. The retrograde factor dir is determined as dir=1 for prograde orbits and dir=-1 for retrograde orbits.…”

Section: Lagrange Planetary Equationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Smart dust has a characteristic side length of some centimeters or ever some millimeters, while solar sail has a very large area. As a result, they both possess high area-to-mass ratio property and will motion on a non-Keplerian orbit under the effect of perturbations, such as SRP [9], atmospheric drag [10], and electrostatic forces [11]. Colombo and McInnes [12] obtained long-term equilibrium orbits for a space-chip device by balancing the perturbations due to solar radiation and atmospheric drag.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Heliotropic frozen orbits design for high area-to-mass ratio spacecraft

Luo

Colombo

2019

J. Astron. Telesc. Instrum. Syst.

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Heliotropic orbits and frozen orbits both possess unique advantages in Earth observation missions and communication service. However, few scholars have found an orbit which possesses heliotropic and frozen characteristics at the same time. This paper obtains novel heliotropic frozen orbits through a proposed control strategy, which is accomplished by adjusting the area-to-mass ratio and the attitude angles. First, we construct the dynamical model of high area-to-mass ratio spacecraft under the effect of J2 perturbation and solar radiation pressure. Then, nominal heliotropic frozen orbits are solved by assuming that the obliquity angle of the ecliptic with respect to the equator is zero. Finally, a control strategy is proposed to maintain heliotropic frozen orbits when the obliquity angle of the ecliptic with respect to the equator is considered. In addition, practical examples are provided to verify the heliotropic and frozen characteristics and the robustness of the controlled orbits. Orbit design for Earth observation and communication service is also studied.

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Section: Lagrange Planetary Equationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heliotropic frozen orbits design for high area-to-mass ratio spacecraft

Luo

Colombo

2019

J. Astron. Telesc. Instrum. Syst.

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“…Internal components are linked to the structure as a single package by using brackets and fasteners. There are different possible configurations obtained by increasing the number of used CubeSat units, which are driven in part by launch‐vehicle integration‐and‐deployment hardware. Propulsion and de‐orbit: Due to the limited mass, volume, and available power, most CubeSats do not have any propulsion or de‐orbit subsystem. The easiest way to implement a simple de‐orbit mechanism is to increase the atmospheric or magnetic drag by increasing the surface area of the satellite once on orbit.…”

Section: Physical Structure and Hardware Componentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Small satellites and CubeSats: Survey of structures, architectures, and protocols

Davoli

Kourogiorgas

Marchese

et al. 2018

Satell Commun Network

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Summary The space environment is still challenging but is becoming more and more attractive for an increasing number of entities. In the second half of the 20th century, a huge amount of funds was required to build satellites and gain access to space. Nowadays, it is no longer so. The advancement of technologies allows producing very small hardware components able to survive the strict conditions of the outer space. Consequently, small satellites can be designed for a wide set of missions keeping low design times, production costs, and deployment costs. One widely used type of small satellite is the CubeSat, whose different aspects are surveyed in the following: mission goals, hardware subsystems and components, possible network topologies, channel models, and suitable communication protocols. We also show some future challenges related to the employment of CubeSat networks.

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“…Solar sails have been developed and tested on various missions starting from the 2010 [1]; however, the isotropic power provided by the Sun is not enough to allow the acceleration needed to reach the desired relativistic velocity in the target distance, so that high power lasers are now considered as potential source of radiation. Depending on the mechanisms that generate the thrust, laser propulsion systems can be either propellantbased or propellant-less [2]: in the first case a thrust is provided by the light driven ejection of a flux of ablated particles of non-zero rest mass [3,4], while for the second one the primary mechanism of thrust generation is due to the energy transfer from incident photons [5,6,7,8,9]. Moreover, a new process which generates propulsion has been recently discovered, being the light-induced ejected electrons (LIEE) in graphene materials [10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Directed Energy Accelerated Lightsails

Santi¹,

Favaro²,

Corso³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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A lightsail accelerated via directed energy is a candidate technology to send a probe into the deep space in a time period compatible with human life. The light emitted by a ground-based large-aperture phased laser array is directed onto the lightsail to produce a thrust by transferring the momentum of the incident photons. To achieve high efficiency propulsion, the lightsail must be characterized by extremely low mass, high reflectance and minimal absorption in the Doppler-shifted laser wavelength range, while high emissivity in the infrared is required for thermal management. Optimized multilayer structures allow ultralight spacecraft being accelerated by laser radiation pressure up to 20% of the light velocity, and eventually even above, as long as a compromise between efficiency and weight is achieved. Key aspect is the ability to survive to the temperature increase during the acceleration phase, which can be fateful for the system.

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Nanosatellite swarm missions in low Earth orbit using laser propulsion

Cited by 23 publications

References 16 publications

Heliotropic frozen orbits design for high area-to-mass ratio spacecraft

Heliotropic frozen orbits design for high area-to-mass ratio spacecraft

Small satellites and CubeSats: Survey of structures, architectures, and protocols

Directed Energy Accelerated Lightsails

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