Countering light pressuon powe satellites.

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 9:41 AM, Arthur Smith
> I don't think the fact that the force is pretty much constant away from
> the Sun matters, because the satellite is orbiting the Earth. The
> satellite is still gravitationally bound to the Earth, so the light
> pressure force is in a way acting on the Earth-satellite system. Its
> direct effect is an essentially constant force on the satellite; on the
> other hand the satellite will also see gravitational forces from the
> Moon that are not that much smaller than the light-pressure force you're
> considering, which will also have a similar steady direction on a daily
> basis (though rotating around once a month in the case of the Moon).
>
> But there's some math involved, the importance one way or the other
> isn't obvious to me right now...

From a 1963 journal article: Solar Radiation Pressure and the Motion
of Earth Satellites

[lead in]

The main works devoted to the study of the effects of solar radiation
pressure on the motion
of artificial earth satellites are reviewed. The resonance case, when
the motion of the satellite
undergoes long-period variations with large amplitudes, is considered in detail.

snip

Yet, in
this case, the observed effect of radiation pressure was so
small that even toward the end of the two-year period the
magnitude of the effect was still determined with an accuracy
of not more than 30%. The accuracy of determining the
magnitude of the radiation pressure from observations of the
satellite "Echo 1" (1960 ii) was much greater, even during
the first month of observations, since the corresponding
variations in the orbit of "Echo 1" are much greater than in
the orbit of "Vanguard 1." These variations in the orbit of

http://www.aiaa.org/content.cfm?pageid@...

Which makes sense. Large light objects are blown around more by wind
or light pressure. Some recent power sat designs are not much more
substantial than Echo 1

Keith