Heliogyro

The heliogyro was a design considered by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for a mission to Halley's Comet. The sail consists of several very long (twelve vanes, seven km in length in the JPL design) vanes extenting from a central hub. The vanes are deployed from rollers by spinning the craft. The centripetal force pulls the sails outwards, unrolling them. The vehicle continues to spin in order to keep the vanes tight. It steers by tilting the vanes, which redirects the solar pressure.

Solar Blade is a current project to fly a nanosatellite heliogyro.

Canadian Solar Sail Project final design. By Paul Fjeld. Provided by Christopher Neufeld.

This heliogyro is the final design by the Canadian Solar Sail Project. Unlike the JPL designs, this craft steers by shifting a ballast mass so that the center of the craft's mass is misaligned from the center of solar pressure on the sails. This creates torques which turn the craft. Paul Fjeld is an artist/engineer who creates illustrations for the Canadian Space Agency.