A novel approach to solar sails with high area-to-mass ratios for efficient solar sailing in geospace

An ultra lightweight millimeter solar sailing space system named ChipSail was reported in this work. The conceptual design of such a spacecraft includes a chip body and four independent millimeter scale solar sails, which can be built based on Al\NiTi bilayer microstructures. Bending stiffness of each solar sail for geometric maintaining under solar radiation pressure (SRP) in geospace is proven inherently satisfied. Lightweight Microstructures with high area-to-mass ratios show a great potential application in solar sailing. Independent control of each solar sail was demonstrated via the finite element method, which contributed to modelling of forces and moments for orbital maneuvering and attitude adjustment, respectively. A DC voltage of 0.05 V has proven effective for acquiring accelerations up to order of magnitude of 1 mm/s
²
and angular accelerations up to the order of magnitude of 0.1 rad/s
²
. This work provides a promising approach to developing solar sailing spacecraft with an order of magnitude higher solar sail accelerations for geospace exploration.