High fidelity thrust model for solar photon sailing

Taking into consideration the importance of a detailed model in the trajectory propagation, three space missions using solar photon sailing has been studied with a different thrust model. Then, an equipment has been designed and built to measure the deformation of a real sample of solar sail on several work conditions. An analysis of the deformations and they distributions has been taken in account to extrapolate a more accurate model for thrust. A comparison between models in function of the sail parameters has been presented to compare the optimal time of travel to reach a circular-to-circular orbital change.