The Rayleigh-Rice Vector Scattering Theory is applied to the interaction between sunlight and sail’s reflective layer, thus going beyond the scalar scattering theory already applied to solar-photon sailing. Diffuse-reflectance sailcraft acceleration is not negligible in accurate sailcraft trajectory propagation. The related values amount to about 20–110 times those ones due to the total solar irradiance fluctuations. The resultant of the diffuse-reflectance photon momenta per unit time and unit area, as function of the sail surface properties and sunlight incidence angle, exhibits many meaningful properties not previously reported in the solar-photon sailing literature.
Applying Vector Scattering Theory to Solar-Photon Sail Thrust Modeling
Springer Praxis Books (formerly: Springer-Praxis Series)
04.02.2014
20 pages
Aufsatz/Kapitel (Buch)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
Solar Sail , Photon Momentum , Power Spectral Density , Diffraction Theory , Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function Optical and Electronic Materials , Engineering , Aerospace Technology and Astronautics , Space Sciences (including Extraterrestrial Physics, Space Exploration and Astronautics)
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