A Heliogyro Solar Sail with Centrifugally Stiffened Blades: Blade Tension, Spin and Steering Budgets

This study sizes the system named in its title from stated physical relations and a stated operating basis, and reports the result as SIMULATED, NOT MEASURED. The operating principle is rotating sail whose long blades are held flat by centrifugal force rather than booms. The heliogyro is a civilian heliocentric research craft intended to carry scientific instruments on a solar-system cruise; it carries no payload other than scientific instruments. Every performance figure is computed by the deposited script from its inputs rather than asserted, and the headline outcomes include centripetal tension at each blade root of 112.85 newtons; total blade area of 3.78e+04 square metres; characteristic acceleration at one astronomical unit of 1.0457 millimetres per second squared; spin-axis precession rate under full steering authority of 18.37 degrees per day. Mass, power, time and energy budgets are assembled from components so they can be audited line by line, off-design behaviour is discussed openly, and the limits of the sizing are stated in full. The design is presented as a civilian system throughout, with its governing constraint identified and quantified rather than merely encountered.