Solar sail acceleration

Ideal sail acceleration for 0 < η ≤ 1. η is the fraction of ideal normal-incidence specular force, not material reflectance.

SIDUS educational calculator. Category propulsion. Tags: mission-design, propulsion. Pure SI. Not flight software.

Formula

a = 2 η P A / (c m)

Solar sail acceleration

Primary sources

• Solar sail force model (NASA): Absorbing sails see P/c and reflecting sails (1+R)P/c. The calculator η is a fraction of ideal specular normal force, not material reflectance.
• SmallSat power subsystems (NASA SmallSat Institute): Solar-array inverse-square irradiance and cosine projection, and spacecraft power-subsystem context for end-of-life array estimates.

How do AI agents use this tool?

Read /llms.txt or call https://sidus.tools/api/mcp. Open the interactive page for live SI inputs.