Abstract The direction and magnitude of a solar sail acceleration are strongly related. For this reason, once the characteristic acceleration has been fixed, it is not possible to modulate the acceleration in a particular direction. In this work, a semi-analytical switching control law is derived, enabling a solar sail to emulate a smaller effective characteristic acceleration (without changes in geometry or optical properties); by periodically changing the pitch (cone) angle of the sail, in average over time, the acceleration produced by the sail matches exactly (in both direction and magnitude) that of a “smaller” sail. The range in which this is possible is determined, and the limitations on this range due to the size difference is computed. The method is validated on optimal Earth-Mars trajectories.

中文翻译：

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一种减小太阳帆有效特征加速度的简单控制律

摘要 太阳帆加速度的方向和大小密切相关。由于这个原因，一旦特征加速度已经固定，就不可能在特定方向上调制加速度。在这项工作中，推导出了半解析切换控制律，使太阳帆能够模拟较小的有效特征加速度（几何或光学特性不变）；通过定期改变帆的俯仰（锥）角，平均随着时间的推移，帆产生的加速度与“较小”帆产生的加速度（在方向和幅度上）完全匹配。确定可能的范围，并计算由于大小差异而对该范围的限制。该方法在最佳地球-火星轨迹上得到验证。