SOLAR SAIL HALO ORBITS .1. HELIOCENTRIC CASE

The dynamics of a heliocentric orbiting, high-performance solar sail are investigated in the context of a corotating reference frame with an arbitrary angular velocity. In this reference frame, stationary solutions out of the ecliptic plane are found, which correspond to Sun-centered halo type orbits, as viewed from an inertial frame. Since the angular velocity of corotation is arbitrary, the period of the halo orbit may be chosen to be some particular value or chosen to minimize the requirements on the sail performance. It will be shown that complex new trajectories may be formed by patching halo orbits together. Heliocentric halo orbits way have wide applications for interplanetary communications and for astronomical observations.