Analysis of displaced solar sail orbits with passive control

A study was conducted to investigate the global stability of the solar sail with passive control by dynamics in an inertial frame. Passive control requires the pitch angle to be fixed in the plane spanned by the angular vector and the position vector. Linear variational equations was used to analyze the stability of displaced orbits. The study found that the sail was stable with any initial values and the sail oscillate in a nominal orbit by the angular momentum of the sail. The amplitudes of the oscillations was determined by the initial values of the radius and angular velocity. Radius and displacement of the nominal displaced orbit increased with the initial angular momentum, and the period increased with the radius of the nominal orbit. The amplitude of the oscillation increased with difference between the initial radius and radius of the nominal orbit.