Solar Sailing for Deep-Space Explorations Orbit Design, Station Keeping, and Formation Flying

This book focuses on the solar sailing technique and investigates in detail its applications for deep-space explorations focusing on the Earth-Moon, Sun-Earth and Sun-planet systems. Solar sailing is an advanced and propellent-free form of low-thrust propulsion, and therefore, a perfect option for energy-demanding and long-duration space missions. This book covers the topics on non-Keplerian orbit designs, low-thrust station-keeping, and spacecraft formation flying using solar sailing from, in particular, the perspectives of dynamics and control. Given its breadth of coverage, the book offers a valuable reference guide for researchers and engineers who are interested in the solar sailing technique and, in particular, its dynamics and control in deep-space exploration missions.

Chapter 1 Introduction.- Chapter 2 Dynamic models and computation methods.- Part I Orbit design and station keeping.

Dr. Chen Gao got his B.E. degree in Flight Vehicle Design and Engineering from Northwestern Polytechnical University (China) in 2015, and Ph.D. degrees in Aerospace Science and Technology from Northwestern Polytechnical University (China) and Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Spain), respectively, in 2022. He is now an Associated Professor at Northwestern Polytechnical University (China) and has been working on different topics of Astrodynamics, including station keeping, solar sailing and formation flying.

Dr. Wei Wang received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Aerospace Engineering from Northwestern Polytechnical University, China, in 2010, 2013 and 2018, respectively. From 2015 to 2017, he has been a visiting scholar in the Department of Civil and Industrial Engineering of the University of Pisa. He is currently an Associate Professor with the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. His research interests include astrodynamics, solar sail, electric sail, and spacecraft formation flying.