Abstract
The purpose of this work is to study the influence of solar sail surface oscillations on the motion of a spacecraft performing an interplanetary flight. The solar sail is a propulsion system, creating thrust due to the pressure of sunlight. The article consists of three parts. The first part focuses on the wave equation applied to this problem. The equation for oscillations is derived for various cases of sail loading, and various types of its design. Also, we derived a formula for the thrust produced by the solar sail. In the second part, the problem of oscillations of the sail structure is solved and its thrust is estimated. Solar sail thrust depends both on the shape of the sail, and on its distance from the Sun. In the third part, the interplanetary flight is modeled taking into account these factors.