Minimum-time rendezvous for Sun-facing diffractive solar sails with diverse deflection angles

This paper investigates the heliocentric time-optimal rendezvous performance of Sun-facing diffractive solar sails with various deflection angles and acceleration capabilities. Diffractive solar sails, which generate tangential radiation pressure force, are proposed and schematically designed to achieve diverse radiation pressure distributions. The radiation pressure force model and the time-optimal control problem for these innovative Sun-facing diffractive solar sails are established. Utilizing an indirect method and the optimal control law, we explore typical heliocentric rendezvous scenarios to assess the variational trends of transfer time in relation to different deflection angles and acceleration capabilities. The results for Sun-facing diffractive sails in specific rendezvous missions are compared to reflective sails with the same area-to-mass ratio, focusing on transfer trajectory and attitude control. Our findings reveal that diffractive sails exhibit significant advantages over reflective sails, particularly in the context of normal acceleration, paving the way for more efficient space exploration.