Asteroid rotation control via a tethered solar sail

Abstract The rotation of asteroids causes difficulties in the exploration of asteroids or prevention of asteroids impact on the Earth. We propose to use a solar sail to control, i.e., slow down or stop the rotational motion of an asteroid. First, the dynamic model of a tethered solar sail in the rotating gravitational field of an asteroid is presented. An optimal control method is employed to determine the control law of the tethered solar sail. The optimal control problem is converted into a nonlinear programming problem with the Gauss pseudospectral method. Simulation results show that this method can effectively slow down or even stop the rotation of an asteroid. A solar sail of 10 5  m 2 can stop the rotation of the asteroid Apophis in 1000 days.