ON THE DEPLOYMENT OF SOLAR SAIL

The mathematical model of one of the ways of deployment in weightlessness of a solar sail is considered. In the initial position, the canvas of the sail is a roll wound on the cylindrical surface (drum) of the spacecraft (SC) rotating by inertia at a constant speed relative to the main axis of inertia of the spacecraft coinciding with the axis of the drum. Iron cores at the same time freed from the hooks at startup. Under the influence of centrifugal forces, they will be removed from the apparatus, pulling the sails. We consider separately the symmetric case when the device is wound panel in two layers with diametrically opposite mounting on the drum and asymmetric case of one panel.