Solar Sail Cycler Orbits
Project overview
Ballistic cycler orbits, such as the Aldrin-type Earth-Mars cycler and resonant Earth-return orbits, have long been proposed as transportation networks for sustained cargo logistics within the solar system [1, 2]. These trajectories rely on idealised multi-body resonances and carefully phased gravity assists, with little flexibility beyond the highly constrained natural gravitational dynamics.
Solar sails provide continuous, propellant-free thrust that fundamentally alters the solution space, enabling families of cycler orbits that either generalise ballistic solutions or are infeasible under purely ballistic dynamics. The existence of such solar sail cyclers for circular-coplanar orbits was identified by Stevens and Ross [3], and has been extended to up to four cycles in [4].
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Systematic approaches to designing solar sail stop-over cyclers [5, 6] exist. However, a general framework for identifying and characterising sail-enabled cycler geometries beyond circular coplanar orbits is missing. To build on these works, we explore the design space of solar sail cycler orbits between single- and multi-body bodies.
To search and characterise solar sail cyclers, we formulate the problem as a reachability problem [7], where the objective is to find the minimum solar sail strength required to make a given transfer feasible. Rather than solving a specific transfer, which may yield an infeasible optimal control problem, this reformulation converts the problem into a well-posed nonlinear program. The model adopts a multi-gravity-assist structure with solar sail legs, which are transcribed using a forward–backward zero-order hold (ZOH) construction with variable-time segments [8].
References
[1] Hollister, W. M. “Periodic orbits for interplanetary flight.” Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 366–369, 1969. doi:10.2514/3.29664. eprint: https://doi.org/10.2514/3.29664.
[2] Byrnes, D. V., Longuski, J. M., and Aldrin, B. “Cycler orbit between Earth and Mars.” Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, Vol. 30, No. 3, pp. 334–336, 1993. doi:10.2514/3.25519. eprint: https://doi.org/10.2514/3.25519.
[3] Stevens, R. and Ross, I. M. “Preliminary Design of Earth-Mars Cyclers Using Solar Sails.” Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, Vol. 42, No. 1, pp. 132–137, Jan. 2005. ISSN 0022-4650, 1533-6794. doi:10.2514/1.2947.
[4] Rozhkov, M. and Starinova, O. “Cyclic Interplanetary Motion of a Cargo Solar Sail.” “Proceedings From The 6th International Symposium On Space Sailing (ISSS23),” 2023.
[5] Mengali, G. and Quarta, A. A. “Solar-Sail-Based Stopover Cyclers for Cargo Transportation Missions.” Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, Vol. 44, No. 4, pp. 822–830, Jul. 2007. ISSN 0022-4650, 1533-6794. doi:10.2514/1.24423.
[6] Miguel, N., Colombo, C., and Vedova, F. D. “Systematic Construction of Solar-Sail-Based Stopover Cyclers.” The Journal of the Astronautical Sciences, Vol. 70, No. 2, p. 6, Mar. 2023. ISSN 2195-0571. doi: 10.1007/s40295-023-00372-0.
[7] Acciarini, G., Izzo, D., and Zhang, Z. “Reachability for Low-Thrust Trajectories via Maximum Initial Mass.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.23770, 2026.
[8] Izzo, D., Holt, H., Acciarini, G., Beauregard, L., and Shimane, Y. “A practical guide to implementing zero-order-hold interplanetary trajectory legs.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.11043, 2026.