The electric solar sail (Esail) is a new propulsion concept which can extract momentum from the solar wind almost without comsuming any propellant. The dynamic characterisitcs of a Esail system composed of two microsatellites connected each other by tethers were investigated. The Esail system was modelled by adopting the dumbbell model assumption accounting for the attitude of electric solar sail, which was neglected in traditional models. Numercial simulations based on heliocentric nonkepler orbits were carried out to evaluate the propulsion performance under the coulomb force from the solar wind. The simulation results indicated that the propulsive efficiency of the Esail was largely influenced by the lengths and voltages of the tethers, the masses of the satellites and the pitch angle with respect to the flight direction.
张恒,文浩,罗操群.旋转电动帆推进性能指标分析[J].动力学与控制学报,2019,17(3):281~287; Zhang Heng, Wen Hao, Luo Caoqun. Analysis of rotating electric solar sail for spacecraft propulsion[J]. Journal of Dynamics and Control,2019,17(3):281-287.