The Solar Polar Sail Mission uses solar-sail propulsion to place a spacecraft in a circular orbit 0.48 Au from the Sun with an inclination of 90 degrees. The spacecraft's orbit around the Sun is in 3:1 resonance with Earth phased such that the Earth-Sun-spacecraft angle range from 30 degrees to 150 degrees. The polar view will further our understanding of: (1) the global structure and evolution of the corona, (2) the initiation, evolution, and propagation of coronal mass ejections; (3) the acceleration of the solar wind; (4) the interactions of rotation, magnetic fields, and convection within the Sun; (5) the acceleration and propagation of energetic particles; and (6) the rate of angular momentum loss by the Sun. Candidate imaging instruments are a coronagraph, an all-sky imager for following mass ejections and interaction regions from the Sun to 1 AU, and a disk imager. A lightweight package of fields and particle instruments is included. A mission using a 158 m square sail with an effective areal density of 6 g/m² would cost approximately $LR 250-300M for all mission phases, including the launch vehicle. This mission depends on the successful development and demonstration of solar-sail propulsion.

Date Published: 2 November 1998
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 3442, Missions to the Sun II, (2 November 1998); doi: 10.1117/12.330265

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3442:
Missions to the Sun II
Clarence M. Korendyke, Editor(s)