Tutorial: Attitude Control - bld/SolarSailNavigator GitHub Wiki

See Reference Frames for an explanation of the solar sail control angles, Cone and Clock.

1. Click “Set to Now” to set the start time of the sail attitude commands to the current Universal Time (UT).
2. Rotate the view (hold the right mouse button) until you are looking through the sail at the sun (the back side is transparent).
3. Click “Lock Attitude” to force the sail to the commanded attitude. The sail should now be edge-on to the sun.
4. Below the “Cone” heading is “90” for a 90 degree cone angle. This is the angle between the line perpendicular to the sail (normal vector) and the line to the sun. Click the +/- buttons to change the cone angle by +/- 5 degrees. Orbital motion is to the right. The sail tilts towards orbital motion when the cone angle is positive, and against when negative. At 0 degrees, the sail faces directly towards the sun.
5. Set the cone angle to 35 degrees. Below the “Clock” heading is the number “0”, which is the rotation of the sail around the sun line. Click “+” until it reaches 90 degrees. The sail should be tilting up. Change the clock angle to 90 degrees, and it will point down.