System Designing of Solar Power Sail-craft for Jupiter Trojan Asteroid Exploration

Harvesting Near Earth Asteroid Resources Using Solar Sail Technology

There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it. Near Earth asteroids represent a wealth of material resources to support future space ventures. These resources include water from C-type asteroids for crew logistic support; liquid propellants electrolytically cracked from water to fuel crewed...

Moving an asteroid with electric solar wind sail

The electric solar wind sail (E-Sail) is a new propulsion method for interplanetary travel which was invented in 2006 and is currently under development. The E-Sail uses charged tethers to extract momentum from the solar wind particles to obtain propulsive thrust. According to current estimates, the E-Sail is 2-3 orders of magnitude better than traditional propulsion methods (chemical rockets a...

Solar Sail Trajectory Design for a Multiple Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous Mission

Accessing the Solar System With a Small Solar Sail

Solar sailing is a proposed means of space propulsion in which a reflective surface collects momentum from solar photons to accelerate a vehicle. The current trend within the solar sailing community is to increase sail size as solar sailing technologies advance, allowing for larger payloads and higher accelerations. However, with the miniaturization of modern payloads, sail sizes can be dramati...

Origins of Solar System Dust Beyond Jupiter

The measurements of cosmic interplanetary dust by the instruments on board the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft contain the dynamical signature of dust generated by Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt objects, as well as short period Oort Cloud comets and short period Jupiter family comets. While the dust concentration detected between Jupiter and Saturn is mainly due to the cometary components, the dust outside...