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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.
IKAROS is the first spacecraft to successfully demonstrate solar sail technology in interplanetary space. [ 3 ] [ 8 ] The craft's name is an allusion to the legendary Icarus ( Ancient Greek : Ἴκαρος , Ikaros ), who flew close to the Sun on wings made of bird-feathers and wax.
The spaceship will compensate for the low thrust by having a mass of only a few grams. The camera, computer, communications laser, a nuclear power source, and the solar sail must be miniaturized to fit within a mass limit. [25] [29] All components must be engineered to endure extreme acceleration, cold, vacuum, and protons. [26]
A giant solar sail recently unfurled by Nasa has been spotted “tumbling” through space.. Astronomers captured the 80-square-metre object, which was unfurled last week, appearing to fluctuate ...
Cosmos 1 was a project by Cosmos Studios and The Planetary Society to test a solar sail in space. As part of the project, an uncrewed solar-sail spacecraft named Cosmos 1 was launched into space at 19:46:09 UTC (15:46:09 EDT) on 21 June 2005 from the submarine Borisoglebsk in the Barents Sea.
An artist's depiction of a solar sail. In December 2017, NASA released a mission concept involving the launch, in 2069, of an interstellar probe to search for signs of life on planets orbiting stars in and around the Alpha Centauri system. [1] [2] The announcement was at the annual conference of the American Geophysical Union. [3]
Solar Cruiser was a planned NASA spacecraft that would have studied the Sun while propelled by a solar sail. [2] [3] The mission would have supported NASA's Solar Terrestrial Probes program by studying how interplanetary space changes in response to the constant outpouring of energy and particles from the Sun and how it interacts with planetary atmospheres. [3]
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]