Solar sailing out of ecliptic plane

Abstract

Solar sailing is an unique form of spacecraft propulsion that uses the free and limitless supply of photons from the Sun. The investigation of near-the-Sun space properties is of the great scientific interest. It can be realized by the help of solar sailing. We present the numerical simulation of several closed modelled trajectories of a spacecraft with a controlled solar sail to reach heliopolar regions, to fly over the Sun north and south poles and to return to the Earth orbit.