Attitude Control of a Spinning Solar Sail via Spin Rate Control using Exact Linearization

Abstract

Solar sails are a form of spacecraft which deploys a large sail in space and uses solar radiation pressure (SRP) for propulsion. The spin-axis direction of a spinning solar sail is known to rotate around an equilibrium point near the Sun direction due to the influence of the SRP. This unique attitude motion can be controlled by the spin rate of a spacecraft, and may help in reducing fuel consumption for attitude control. In this paper, attitude control of a spinning solar sail via the spin rate is optimized and compared with a general attitude control method. The comparison shows a powerful effectiveness of the attitude control via the spin rate.