Abstract
This paper summarizes the guidance, navigation and control of the world’s first solar power sail IKAROS. During the 1.5 years of its interplanetary flight, IKAROS has carried out the guidance, navigation and control experiments using the large solar radiation force generated by its 200 m2 solar sail. Since solar radiation pressure is the main controllable force for a solar sail, its modeling is the key factor for a successful guidance. A precise solar radiation pressure modeling for this spinning solar sail has been performed in order to support the navigation and guidance using the large membrane. Due to the complexity of the sail surface and shape, the refinement of the SRP model is done after the deployment in space with radiometric measurements. This solar sail navigation is also supported by the precise delta-DOR (Differential One-way Range) measurements. These in-flight demonstrations with IKAROS enable the future deep space exploration with solar sailing technique.
