Light sail SPS; Sun-Earth L1 (was Correcting my own math -- CORRECTED)

Am 06.02.2012 04:26, schrieb Al Globus:
> All that matter is mass/area. I've done sims at 50 g/m^2 and the
> system gets blown all over the place. Doesn't work very well at all.
> 37.5 will just be worse.

So, what happens? Does the spacecraft go out of orbit or is the software
just not used to such numbers?

> BTW: I used the STK (Satellite Toolkit) with
> one of the propagators that includes light pressure, which you have to
> pay for. You can, however, use the good propagator for 30 days for
> free. So, make sure you have plenty of time, get the free STK and
> sign up for the free 30 day trial and sim away.

Thanks for the information. Might very well be, that I do that. On the
other hand, would it help, if the software cannot handle the data of the
square km sized power sattelites which would be the most interesting part?
>
> My sim was a just a 1 m^2 satellite weighing 100 g (or 50, or whatever
> I was interested in at the time).

Regarding the mass/area relationship, cosmic dust or light sails with a
lightness number of 1 or lower come to mind.
In this case the SRP overcomes Suns gravity as the dust and light sails
have little mass.

Some cosmic dust gets blown outwards from Sun regardless if Suns gravity
is pulling, a solar sail with a lightness number of 1 could
hover above Sun without having to orbit it.

To finance power sattelites we would try to get them as light as
possible. The latest development of very thin thin film solar cells
would help a lot to get the mass in relation to the sail area down.

Best wishes

Frank