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IKAROS, the first space-probe with a solar sail in flight (artist's depiction), featuring a typical square sail configuration of almost 200 m 2. Solar sails (also known as lightsails, light sails, and photon sails) are a method of spacecraft propulsion using radiation pressure exerted by sunlight on large surfaces. A number of spaceflight ...
The IKAROS probe is the world's first spacecraft to use solar sailing as the main propulsion. [14] It was designed to demonstrate four key technologies (comments in parentheses refer to figure): Deployment and control of a large, thin solar sail membrane (grey-blue areas numbered 3)
LightSail 2 with deployed solar sail, 23 July 2019. LightSail 2 (COSPAR 2019-036AC) was a CubeSat fitted with a solar sail the size of a boxing ring, covering 32 m 2 (340 sq ft). The sail captured incoming photons from the Sun, just as a wind sail catches the moving air molecules, to propel the spacecraft. [30]
CubeSail was a 2018 low-cost spacecraft propulsion demonstration mission using two identical 1.5U CubeSat satellites to deploy a 260 m (850 ft) long, 20 m 2 (220 sq ft) solar sail ribbon between them. [2]
Interstellar Probe is the name of a 1999 space probe concept by NASA intended to travel out 200 AU in 15 years. [1] This 1999 study by Jet Propulsion Laboratory is noted for its circular 400-meter-diameter solar sail as a propulsion method (1 g/m 2) combined with a 0.25 AU flyby of the Sun to achieve higher solar light pressure, after which the sail is jettisoned at 5 AU distance from the Sun. [2]
The Advanced Composite Solar Sail System, or ACS 3, is designed to test a next-generation propulsion method that harnesses the power of sunlight to travel through space without the need for rocket ...
The objectives of the CubeSail mission are to demonstrate the concept of solar sail propulsion of a 3-axis stabilised 25 m 2 solar sail for one year while in low Earth orbit; and to demonstrate the use of gossamer structures (very light gauze-like fabric) as a drag augmentation device for satellite de-orbiting. [6]
An electric sail (also known as an electric solar wind sail or an E-sail) is a proposed form of spacecraft propulsion using the dynamic pressure of the solar wind as a source of thrust. It creates a "virtual" sail by using small wires to form an electric field that deflects solar wind protons and extracts their momentum.