Mission Analysis for Vesta and Ceres Exploration Using Electric Sail With Classical and Advanced Thrust Models

The electric sail is an innovative concept for spacecraft propulsion, which can generate continuous thrust without propellant by reflecting solar wind ions. In previous studies, the thrust of an electric sail is described by a classical model that neglects the effects of the electric sail attitude on the propulsive thrust modulus and direction. This paper reappraised the performance of the electric sail in the Vesta and Ceres exploration mission with an advanced thrust model that considers the effect of the spacecraft attitude on both the thrust modulus and direction. By using a hybrid optimization method, the trajectory optimization of the electric-sail-based spacecraft from earth to Vesta and Ceres is implemented in an optimization framework. Numerical results show that the minimal flight time with the advanced thrust model is longer than that with the classical model. The difference in performance between the classical and advanced models is attributable to overestimation of the maximum thrust cone angle and the thrust modulus by the classical model.