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Article: Studies from Goddard Space Flight Center reveal new findings on spacecraft and rockets.
- Article from:
- Defense & Aerospace Week
- Article date:
- November 11, 2009
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According to recent research from the United States, "Missions have been proposed in which a spacecraft equipped with a large furlable solar sail transfers to a main-belt asteroid using the fully deployed sail for propulsion and then performs an inspection mission at the asteroid with the sail fully stowed."
"This paper examines ways in which the partially deployed sail could instead be used to maneuver the spacecraft while in the vicinity of the asteroid, with the goal of improving the science observations that could be made. are presented for quantifying the performance that can be obtained by taking advantage of the freedom to select the active sail area for ...