Electron radiation effects on candidate solar sail material

Solar sailing is a unique form of propulsion in which a spacecraft gains momentum from incident photons. Solar sails are not limited by reaction mass and provide continual acceleration, reduced only by the lifetime of the lightweight film in the space environment and the distance to the Sun. Once thought to be difficult or impossible, solar sailing has come out of science fiction and into the realm of possibility Any spacecraft using this propulsion method would need to deploy a thin sail that could be as large as many kilometres in extent. The availability of strong, ultra lightweight, and radiation-resistant materials will determine the future of solar sailing. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) is concentrating research into the utilization of ultra lightweight materials for spacecraft propulsion. The Space Environmental Effects Team at MSFC is actively characterizing candidate solar sail material to evaluate the thermo-optical and mechanical properties after exposure to space environmental effects. This paper will describe the irradiation of candidate solar sail materials to energetic electrons, in vacuum, in an effort to determine the in-space operational survivability of several candidate sail materials. Results from this research indicate that the candidate sail materials can survive significant doses of electron radiation while under high uniaxial. stress.