Control of large angle maneuvers for the flexible solar sail

Solar sail is a new type of spacecraft for deep space exploration, which flies by the pressure of sunlight. The attitude of the sail determines its orbit, so altitude control plays an important role in the mission. However, the large flexible structure leads to some difficulty in attitude control. This paper establishes the reduced dynamic model of a flexible solar sail with foreshortening deformation, and coupling with its attitude and vibration. As usual, large angle maneuvering will lead to the vibration of flexible structure, so the time optimal control of solar sail maneuvering is considered. Bang-Bang control of the solar sail generates large amplitude and sustained vibration, while the combined control based on input shaping can eliminate the vibration efficiently. With the comparison of two reduced models, it is demonstrated that the choice of two models depends on the attention to the stretching deformation.