The electric sail is an innovative concept for spacecraft propulsion, which can generate continuous thrust without propellant by reflecting solar wind ions. In previous studies, the thrust of an electric sail is described by a classical model that neglects the effects of the electric sail attitude on the propulsive thrust modulus and direction. This paper reappraised the performance of the electric sail in the Vesta and Ceres exploration mission with an advanced thrust model that considers the effect of the spacecraft attitude on both the thrust modulus and direction. By using a hybrid optimization method, the trajectory optimization of the electric-sail-based spacecraft from earth to Vesta and Ceres is implemented in an optimization framework. Numerical results show that the minimal flight time with the advanced thrust model is longer than that with the classical model. The difference in performance between the classical and advanced models is attributable to overestimation of the maximum thrust cone angle and the thrust modulus by the classical model.

中文翻译：

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使用具有经典和先进推力模型的电动帆进行灶神星和谷神星探索的任务分析

电帆是航天器推进的创新概念，通过反射太阳风离子，无需推进剂即可产生持续推力。在以往的研究中，电动帆的推力由经典模型描述，该模型忽略了电动帆姿态对推进推力模量和方向的影响。本文采用先进的推力模型重新评估了电帆在灶神星和谷神星探索任务中的性能，该模型考虑了航天器姿态对推力模量和方向的影响。通过使用混合优化方法，在优化框架中实现了从地球到灶神星和谷神星的电帆航天器的轨迹优化。数值结果表明，先进推力模型的最小飞行时间比经典模型长。经典模型和先进模型之间的性能差异归因于经典模型高估了最大推力锥角和推力模量。