From Space Mirrors to Planetary Sunshades: Historical Roadmap, Mission Concepts and Public Outreach

This research proposes an immersive journey through the immense field of interest of Space Mirrors and Planetary Sunshades, based on survey research conducted on hundreds of references collected, from 1900 to nowadays. The goal is to guide those who approach these themes for the first time through all the main aspects of the field but also giving experts a useful tool to navigate among the available scientific literature, simplifying the search for specific topics, such as mission concepts and roadmaps or astrodynamics models studied. It is detailed a historical roadmap, exploring projects, missions and research form Oberth’s Space Mirror to the modern concepts of Solar Reflectors and possible applications for Planetary Sunshades. Then, several maps of the authors who have made the greatest contribution to the research are presented, along with connections between publications, and a geographical localization of the references collected. Subsequently, different classifications are presented, including architectural frameworks and possible mission concepts, astrodynamics models used to study their motion and system engineering, providing an overview of possible subsystem solutions and cost analysis. To conclude, a section on art and literature is presented to bring the discussion outside the academic world, seeing how these themes have been communicated and what impact they may have had on the collective imagination.