TY - CHAP A1 - Dachwald, Bernd A1 - Wurm, P. T1 - Design concept and modeling of an advanced solar photon thruster T2 - Advances in the Astronautical Sciences N2 - The so-called "compound solar sail", also known as "Solar Photon Thruster" (SPT), holds the potential of providing significant performance advantages over the flat solar sail. Previous SPT design concepts, however, do not consider shadowing effects and multiple reflections of highly concentrated solar radiation that would inevitably destroy the gossamer sail film. In this paper, we propose a novel advanced SPT (ASPT) design concept that does not suffer from these oversimplifications. We present the equations that describe the thrust force acting on such a sail system and compare its performance with respect to the conventional flat solar sail. KW - solar sails Y1 - 2009 SN - 978-087703554-1 SN - 00653438 N1 - 19th AAS/AIAA Space Flight Mechanics Meeting; Savannah, GA; United States; 8 February 2009 through 12 February 2009 SP - 723 EP - 740 PB - American Astronautical Society CY - San Diego, Calif. ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Dachwald, Bernd A1 - Wurm, P. T1 - Mission analysis for an advanced solar photon thruster T2 - 60th International Astronautical Congress 2009, IAC 2009 N2 - The so-called "compound solar sail", also known as "Solar Photon Thruster" (SPT), is a solar sail design concept, for which the two basic functions of the solar sail, namely light collection and thrust direction, are uncoupled. In this paper, we introduce a novel SPT concept, termed the Advanced Solar Photon Thruster (ASPT). This model does not suffer from the simplified assumptions that have been made for the analysis of compound solar sails in previous studies. We present the equations that describe the force, which acts on the ASPT. After a detailed design analysis, the performance of the ASPT with respect to the conventional flat solar sail (FSS) is investigated for three interplanetary mission scenarios: An Earth-Venus rendezvous, where the solar sail has to spiral towards the Sun, an Earth-Mars rendezvous, where the solar sail has to spiral away from the Sun, and an Earth-NEA rendezvous (to near-Earth asteroid 1996FG3), where a large orbital eccentricity change is required. The investigated solar sails have realistic near-term characteristic accelerations between 0.1 and 0.2mm/s2. Our results show that a SPT is not superior to the flat solar sail unless very idealistic assumptions are made. KW - Interplanetary flight Y1 - 2009 SN - 978-161567908-9 N1 - 60th International Astronautical Congress 2009, IAC 2009; Daejeon; South Korea; 12 October 2009 through 16 October 2009 VL - Vol. 8 SP - 6838 EP - 6851 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Grundmann, Jan Thimo A1 - Bauer, Wlademar A1 - Borchers, Kai A1 - Dumont, Etienne A1 - Grimm, Christian D. A1 - Ho, Tra-Mi A1 - Jahnke, Rico A1 - Koch, Aaron D. A1 - Lange, Caroline A1 - Maiwald, Volker A1 - Meß, Jan-Gerd A1 - Mikulz, Eugen A1 - Quantius, Dominik A1 - Reershemius, Siebo A1 - Renger, Thomas A1 - Sasaki, Kaname A1 - Seefeldt, Patric A1 - Spietz, Peter A1 - Spröwitz, Tom A1 - Sznajder, Maciej A1 - Toth, Norbert A1 - Ceriotti, Matteo A1 - McInnes, Colin A1 - Peloni, Alessandro A1 - Biele, Jens A1 - Krause, Christian A1 - Dachwald, Bernd A1 - Hercik, David A1 - Lichtenheldt, Roy A1 - Wolff, Friederike A1 - Koncz, Alexander A1 - Pelivan, Ivanka A1 - Schmitz, Nicole A1 - Boden, Ralf A1 - Riemann, Johannes A1 - Seboldt, Wolfgang A1 - Wejmo, Elisabet A1 - Ziach, Christian A1 - Mikschl, Tobias A1 - Montenegro, Sergio A1 - Ruffer, Michael A1 - Cordero, Federico A1 - Tardivel, Simon T1 - Solar sails for planetary defense & high-energy missions T2 - IEEE Aerospace Conference Proceedings N2 - 20 years after the successful ground deployment test of a (20 m) 2 solar sail at DLR Cologne, and in the light of the upcoming U.S. NEAscout mission, we provide an overview of the progress made since in our mission and hardware design studies as well as the hardware built in the course of our solar sail technology development. We outline the most likely and most efficient routes to develop solar sails for useful missions in science and applications, based on our developed `now-term' and near-term hardware as well as the many practical and managerial lessons learned from the DLR-ESTEC Gossamer Roadmap. Mission types directly applicable to planetary defense include single and Multiple NEA Rendezvous ((M)NR) for precursor, monitoring and follow-up scenarios as well as sail-propelled head-on retrograde kinetic impactors (RKI) for mitigation. Other mission types such as the Displaced L1 (DL1) space weather advance warning and monitoring or Solar Polar Orbiter (SPO) types demonstrate the capability of near-term solar sails to achieve asteroid rendezvous in any kind of orbit, from Earth-coorbital to extremely inclined and even retrograde orbits. Some of these mission types such as SPO, (M)NR and RKI include separable payloads. For one-way access to the asteroid surface, nanolanders like MASCOT are an ideal match for solar sails in micro-spacecraft format, i.e. in launch configurations compatible with ESPA and ASAP secondary payload platforms. Larger landers similar to the JAXA-DLR study of a Jupiter Trojan asteroid lander for the OKEANOS mission can shuttle from the sail to the asteroids visited and enable multiple NEA sample-return missions. The high impact velocities and re-try capability achieved by the RKI mission type on a final orbit identical to the target asteroid's but retrograde to its motion enables small spacecraft size impactors to carry sufficient kinetic energy for deflection. Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/AERO.2019.8741900 N1 - AERO 2019; Big Sky; United States; 2 March 2019 through 9 March 2019 SP - 1 EP - 21 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Ohndorf, Andreas A1 - Dachwald, Bernd A1 - Seboldt, Wolfgang A1 - Schartner, Karl-Heinz T1 - Flight times to the heliopause using a combination of solar and radioisotope electric propulsion T2 - 32nd International Electric Propulsion Conference N2 - We investigate the interplanetary flight of a low-thrust space probe to the heliopause,located at a distance of about 200 AU from the Sun. Our goal was to reach this distance within the 25 years postulated by ESA for such a mission (which is less ambitious than the 15-year goal set by NASA). Contrary to solar sail concepts and combinations of allistic and electrically propelled flight legs, we have investigated whether the set flight time limit could also be kept with a combination of solar-electric propulsion and a second, RTG-powered upper stage. The used ion engine type was the RIT-22 for the first stage and the RIT-10 for the second stage. Trajectory optimization was carried out with the low-thrust optimization program InTrance, which implements the method of Evolutionary Neurocontrol,using Artificial Neural Networks for spacecraft steering and Evolutionary Algorithms to optimize the Neural Networks’ parameter set. Based on a parameter space study, in which the number of thrust units, the unit’s specific impulse, and the relative size of the solar power generator were varied, we have chosen one configuration as reference. The transfer time of this reference configuration was 29.6 years and the fastest one, which is technically more challenging, still required 28.3 years. As all flight times of this parameter study were longer than 25 years, we further shortened the transfer time by applying a launcher-provided hyperbolic excess energy up to 49 km2/s2. The resulting minimal flight time for the reference configuration was then 27.8 years. The following, more precise optimization to a launch with the European Ariane 5 ECA rocket reduced the transfer time to 27.5 years. This is the fastest mission design of our study that is flexible enough to allow a launch every year. The inclusion of a fly-by at Jupiter finally resulted in a flight time of 23.8 years,which is below the set transfer-time limit. However, compared to the 27.5-year transfer,this mission design has a significantly reduced launch window and mission flexibility if the escape direction is restricted to the heliosphere’s “nose". KW - low-thrust trajectory optimization KW - heliosphere KW - ion propulsion Y1 - 2011 N1 - IEPC-2011-051 32nd International Electric Propulsion Conference,September 11–15, 2011 Wiesbaden, Germany SP - 1 EP - 12 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Borggräfe, Andreas A1 - Dachwald, Bernd T1 - Mission performance evaluation for solar sails using a refined SRP force model with variable optical coefficients T2 - 2nd International Symposium on Solar Sailing N2 - Solar sails provide ignificant advantages over other low-thrust propulsion systems because they produce thrust by the momentum exchange from solar radiation pressure (SRP) and thus do not consume any propellant.The force exerted on a very thin sail foil basically depends on the light incidence angle. Several analytical SRP force models that describe the SRP force acting on the sail have been established since the 1970s. All the widely used models use constant optical force coefficients of the reflecting sail material. In 2006,MENGALI et al. proposed a refined SRP force model that takes into account the dependancy of the force coefficients on the light incident angle,the sail’s distance from the sun (and thus the sail emperature) and the surface roughness of the sail material [1]. In this paper, the refined SRP force model is compared to the previous ones in order to identify the potential impact of the new model on the predicted capabilities of solar sails in performing low-cost interplanetary space missions. All force models have been implemented within InTrance, a global low-thrust trajectory optimization software utilizing evolutionary neurocontrol [2]. Two interplanetary rendezvous missions, to Mercury and the near-Earth asteroid 1996FG3, are investigated. Two solar sail performances in terms of characteristic acceleration are examined for both scenarios, 0.2 mm/s2 and 0.5 mm/s2, termed “low” and “medium” sail performance. In case of the refined SRP model, three different values of surface roughness are chosen, h = 0 nm, 10 nm and 25 nm. The results show that the refined SRP force model yields shorter transfer times than the standard model. Y1 - 2010 N1 - 2nd International Symposium on Solar Sailing, ISSS 2010, 2010-07-20 - 2010-07-22. New York City College of Technology of the City University of New York, USA SP - 1 EP - 6 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Dachwald, Bernd A1 - Kahle, Ralph A1 - Wie, Bong T1 - Head-on impact deflection of NEAs: a case study for 99942 Apophis T2 - Planetary Defense Conference 2007 N2 - Near-Earth asteroid (NEA) 99942 Apophis provides a typical example for the evolution of asteroid orbits that lead to Earth-impacts after a close Earth-encounter that results in a resonant return. Apophis will have a close Earth-encounter in 2029 with potential very close subsequent Earth-encounters (or even an impact) in 2036 or later, depending on whether it passes through one of several less than 1 km-sized gravitational keyholes during its 2029-encounter. A pre-2029 kinetic impact is a very favorable option to nudge the asteroid out of a keyhole. The highest impact velocity and thus deflection can be achieved from a trajectory that is retrograde to Apophis orbit. With a chemical or electric propulsion system, however, many gravity assists and thus a long time is required to achieve this. We show in this paper that the solar sail might be the better propulsion system for such a mission: a solar sail Kinetic Energy Impactor (KEI) spacecraft could impact Apophis from a retrograde trajectory with a very high relative velocity (75-80 km/s) during one of its perihelion passages. The spacecraft consists of a 160 m × 160 m, 168 kg solar sail assembly and a 150 kg impactor. Although conventional spacecraft can also achieve the required minimum deflection of 1 km for this approx. 320 m-sized object from a prograde trajectory, our solar sail KEI concept also allows the deflection of larger objects. For a launch in 2020, we also show that, even after Apophis has flown through one of the gravitational keyholes in 2029, the solar sail KEI concept is still feasible to prevent Apophis from impacting the Earth, but many KEIs would be required for consecutive impacts to increase the total Earth-miss distance to a safe value Y1 - 2007 N1 - Planetary Defense Conference 2007, Wahington D.C., USA, 05-08 March 2007 SP - 1 EP - 12 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Grundmann, Jan Thimo A1 - Boden, Ralf A1 - Ceriotti, Matteo A1 - Dachwald, Bernd A1 - Dumont, Etienne A1 - Grimm, Christian D. A1 - Lange, Caroline A1 - Lichtenheldt, Roy A1 - Pelivan, Ivanka A1 - Peloni, Alessandro A1 - Riemann, Johannes A1 - Spröwitz, Tom A1 - Tardivel, Simon T1 - Soil to sail-asteroid landers on near-term sailcraft as an evolution of the GOSSAMER small spacecraft solar sail concept for in-situ characterization T2 - 5th IAA Planetary Defense Conference KW - multiple NEA rendezvous KW - solar sail KW - GOSSAMER-1 KW - MASCOT KW - asteroid sample return Y1 - 2017 N1 - 5th IAA Planetary Defense Conference – PDC 2017 15-19 May 2017, Tokyo, Japan ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Seboldt, Wolfgang A1 - Dachwald, Bernd T1 - Solar sails for near-term advanced scientific deep space missions T2 - Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Combustion and Propulsion N2 - Solar sails are propelled in space by reflecting solar photons off large mirroring surfaces, thereby transforming the momentum of the photons into a propulsive force. This innovative concept for low-thrust space propulsion works without any propellant and thus provides a wide range of opportunities for highenergy low-cost missions. Offering an efficient way of propulsion, solar sailcraft could close a gap in transportation options for highly demanding exploration missions within our solar system and even beyond. On December 17th, 1999, a significant step was made towards the realization of this technology: a lightweight solar sail structure with an area of 20 m × 20 m was successfully deployed on ground in a large facility at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) at Cologne. The deployment from a package of 60 cm × 60 cm × 65 cm with a total mass of less than 35 kg was achieved using four extremely light-weight carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) booms with a specific mass of 100 g/m. The paper briefly reviews the basic principles of solar sails as well as the technical concept and its realization in the ground demonstration experiment, performed in close cooperation between DLR and ESA. Next possible steps are outlined. They could comprise the in-orbit demonstration of the sail deployment on the upper stage of a low-cost rocket and the verification of the propulsion concept by an autonomous and free flying solar sail in the frame of a scientific mission. It is expected that the present design could be extended to sail sizes of about (40 m)2 up to even (70 m)2 without significant mass penalty. With these areas, the maximum achievable thrust at 1 AU would range between 10 and 40 mN – comparable to some electric thrusters. Such prototype sails with a mass between 50 and 150 kg plus a micro-spacecraft of 50 to 250 kg would have a maximum acceleration in the order of 0.1 mm/s2 at 1 AU, corresponding to a maximum ∆V-capability of about 3 km/s per year. Two near/medium-term mission examples to a near-Earth asteroid (NEA) will be discussed: a rendezvous mission and a sample return mission. KW - solar sail KW - low-thrust KW - near-Earth asteroid KW - sample return KW - solar system Y1 - 2003 N1 - Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Combustion and Propulsion. Pozzuoli, Italy, 16 - 21 June 2002. ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Dachwald, Bernd A1 - Seboldt, Wolfgang A1 - Häusler, Bernd T1 - Performance requirements for near-term interplanetary solar sailcraft missions T2 - 6th International AAAF Symposium on Space Propulsion: Propulsion for Space Transportation of the XXIst Century N2 - Solar sailcraft provide a wide range of opportunities for high-energy low-cost missions. To date, most mission studies require a rather demanding performance that will not be realized by solar sailcraft of the first generation. However, even with solar sailcraft of moderate performance, scientifically relevant missions are feasible. This is demonstrated with a Near Earth Asteroid sample return mission and various planetary rendezvous missions. Y1 - 2002 N1 - 6th International AAAF Symposium on Space Propulsion: Propulsion for Space Transportation of the XXIst Century, Versailles, France, 14-16 May 2002 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schartner, Karl-Heinz A1 - Loeb, H. W. A1 - Dachwald, Bernd A1 - Ohndorf, Andreas T1 - Perspectives of electric propulsion for outer planetary and deep space missions T2 - European Planetary Science Congress 2009 N2 - Solar-electric propulsion (SEP) is superior with respect to payload capacity, flight time and flexible launch window to the conventional interplanetary transfer method using chemical propulsion combined with gravity assists. This fact results from the large exhaust velocities of electric low–thrust propulsion and is favourable also for missions to the giant planets, Kuiper-belt objects and even for a heliopause probe (IHP) as shown in three studies by the authors funded by DLR. They dealt with a lander for Europa and a sample return mission from a mainbelt asteroid [1], with the TANDEM mission [2]; the third recent one investigates electric propulsion for the transfer to the edge of the solar system. All studies are based on triple-junction solar arrays, on rf-ion thrusters of the qualified RIT-22 type and they use the intelligent trajectory optimization program InTrance [3]. Y1 - 2009 N1 - European Planetary Science Congress 2009, 13-18 September, Potsdam, Germany SP - 416 EP - 416 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Spurmann, Jörn A1 - Ohndorf, Andreas A1 - Dachwald, Bernd A1 - Seboldt, Wolfgang A1 - Löb, Horst A1 - Schartner, Karl-Heinz T1 - Interplanetary trajectory optimization for a sep mission to Saturn T2 - 60th International Astronautical Congress 2009 N2 - The recently proposed NASA and ESA missions to Saturn and Jupiter pose difficult tasks to mission designers because chemical propulsion scenarios are not capable of transferring heavy spacecraft into the outer solar system without the use of gravity assists. Thus our developed mission scenario based on the joint NASA/ESA Titan Saturn System Mission baselines solar electric propulsion to improve mission flexibility and transfer time. For the calculation of near-globally optimal low-thrust trajectories, we have used a method called Evolutionary Neurocontrol, which is implemented in the low-thrust trajectory optimization software InTrance. The studied solar electric propulsion scenario covers trajectory optimization of the interplanetary transfer including variations of the spacecraft's thrust level, the thrust unit's specific impulse and the solar power generator power level. Additionally developed software extensions enabled trajectory optimization with launcher-provided hyperbolic excess energy, a complex solar power generator model and a variable specific impulse ion engine model. For the investigated mission scenario, Evolutionary Neurocontrol yields good optimization results, which also hold valid for the more elaborate spacecraft models. Compared to Cassini/Huygens, the best found solutions have faster transfer times and a higher mission flexibility in general. KW - Spacecraft KW - Reusable Rocket Engines KW - Hybrid Propellants Y1 - 2009 SN - 9781615679089 N1 - 60th International Astronautical Congress 2009 (IAC 2009) Held 12-16 October 2009, Daejeon, Republic of Korea. SP - 5234 EP - 5248 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Loeb, Horst Wolfgang A1 - Schartner, Karl-Heinz A1 - Dachwald, Bernd A1 - Seboldt, Wolfgang T1 - SEP-Sample return from a main belt asteroid T2 - 30th International Electric Propulsion Conference N2 - By DLR-contact, sample return missions to the large main-belt asteroid “19, Fortuna” have been studied. The mission scenario has been based on three ion thrusters of the RIT-22 model, which is presently under space qualification, and on solar arrays equipped with triple-junction GaAs solar cells. After having designed the spacecraft, the orbit-to-orbit trajectories for both, a one-way SEP mission with a chemical sample return and an all-SEP return mission, have been optimized using a combination of artificial neural networks with evolutionary algorithms. Additionally, body-to-body trajectories have been investigated within a launch period between 2012 and 2015. For orbit-to-orbit calculation, the launch masses of the hybrid mission and of the all-SEP mission resulted in 2.05 tons and 1.56 tons, respectively, including a scientific payload of 246 kg. For the related transfer durations 4.14 yrs and 4.62 yrs were obtained. Finally, a comparison between the mission scenarios based on SEP and on NEP have been carried out favouring clearly SEP. Y1 - 2007 SP - 1 EP - 11 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Dachwald, Bernd A1 - Mengali, Giovanni A1 - Quarta, Alessandro A A1 - Macdonald, Malcolm A1 - McInnes, Colin R T1 - Optical solar sail degradation modelling T2 - 1st International Symposium on Solar Sailing N2 - We propose a simple parametric OSSD model that describes the variation of the sail film's optical coefficients with time, depending on the sail film's environmental history, i.e., the radiation dose. The primary intention of our model is not to describe the exact behavior of specific film-coating combinations in the real space environment, but to provide a more general parametric framework for describing the general optical degradation behavior of solar sails. Y1 - 2007 N1 - 1st International Symposium on Solar Sailing 27–29 June 2007, Herrsching, Germany SP - 1 EP - 27 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schoutetens, Frederic A1 - Dachwald, Bernd A1 - Heiligers, Jeannette T1 - Optimisation of photon-sail trajectories in the alpha-centauri system using evolutionary neurocontrol T2 - 8th ICATT (International Conference on Astrodynamics Tools and Techniques) 23 - 25 June 2021, Virtual N2 - With the increased interest for interstellar exploration after the discovery of exoplanets and the proposal by Breakthrough Starshot, this paper investigates the optimisation of photon-sail trajectories in Alpha Centauri. The prime objective is to find the optimal steering strategy for a photonic sail to get captured around one of the stars after a minimum-time transfer from Earth. By extending the idea of the Breakthrough Starshot project with a deceleration phase upon arrival, the mission’s scientific yield will be increased. As a secondary objective, transfer trajectories between the stars and orbit-raising manoeuvres to explore the habitable zones of the stars are investigated. All trajectories are optimised for minimum time of flight using the trajectory optimisation software InTrance. Depending on the sail technology, interstellar travel times of 77.6-18,790 years can be achieved, which presents an average improvement of 30% with respect to previous work. Still, significant technological development is required to reach and be captured in the Alpha-Centauri system in less than a century. Therefore, a fly-through mission arguably remains the only option for a first exploratory mission to Alpha Centauri, but the enticing results obtained in this work provide perspective for future long-residence missions to our closest neighbouring star system. Y1 - 2021 N1 - 8th ICATT (International Conference on Astrodynamics Tools and Techniques) 23 - 25 June 2021, Virtual SP - 1 EP - 15 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Seefeldt, Patric A1 - Bauer, Waldemar A1 - Dachwald, Bernd A1 - Grundmann, Jan Thimo A1 - Straubel, Marco A1 - Sznajder, Maciej A1 - Tóth, Norbert A1 - Zander, Martin E. T1 - Large lightweight deployable structures for planetary defence: solar sail propulsion, solar concentrator payloads, large-scale photovoltaic power T2 - 4th IAA Planetary Defense Conference - PDC 2015, 13-17 April 2015, Frascati, Roma, Italy Y1 - 2015 N1 - IAA-PDC-15-P-20 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Dachwald, Bernd T1 - Radiation pressure force model for an ideal laser-enhanced solar sail T2 - 4th International Symposium on Solar Sailing N2 - The concept of a laser-enhanced solar sail is introduced and the radiation pressure force model for an ideal laser-enhanced solar sail is derived. A laser-enhanced solar sail is a “traditional” solar sail that is, however, not solely propelled by solar radiation, but additionally by a laser beam that illuminates the sail. The additional laser radiation pressure increases the sail's propulsive force and can give, depending on the location of the laser source, more control authority over the direction of the solar sail’s propulsive force vector. This way, laser-enhanced solar sails may augment already existing solar sail mission concepts and make novel mission concepts feasible. Y1 - 2017 N1 - 4th International Symposium on Solar Sailing 17-20 January 2017, Kyōto, Japan SP - 1 EP - 5 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Dachwald, Bernd T1 - Solar sail performance requirements for missions to the outer solar system and beyond T2 - 55th International Astronautical Congress 2004 N2 - Solar sails enable missions to the outer solar system and beyond, although the solar radiation pressure decreases with the square of solar distance. For such missions, the solar sail may gain a large amount of energy by first making one or more close approaches to the sun. Within this paper, optimal trajectories for solar sail missions to the outer planets and into near interstellar space (200 AU) are presented. Thereby, it is shown that even near/medium-term solar sails with relatively moderate performance allow reasonable transfer times to the boundaries of the solar system. Y1 - 2004 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.2514/6.IAC-04-S.P.11 N1 - 55th International Astronautical Congress 2004 - Vancouver, Canada SP - 1 EP - 9 ER -