Measuring the Interplanetary Medium with a Solar Sail

Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0308108

From: Michael Martin Nieto <mmn@lanl.gov>

Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2003 22:26:23 GMT   (9kb)

Authors:
Michael Martin Nieto,
Slava G. Turyshev

Comments: 11 pages

Report-no: LA-UR-03-5541

A solar sail mission to deep space could determine the density of the
interplanetary medium by measuring the drag force on the huge sail with
radiometric navigational data. Thus, a mission similar to the Interstellar
Probe might consider retaining its sail beyond the orbit of Jupiter to measure
the matter density in deep space. Such an experiment would a yield an
independent, new type of measurement of the interplanetary medium and should be
pursued.

References and citations for this submission:

SLAC-SPIRES HEP (refers to ,
cited by, arXiv reformatted)