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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.
The Znamya 2 was a 20-metre wide space solar mirror. Znamya-2 was launched aboard Progress M-15 from Baikonur on 27 October 1992. After visiting the EO-12 crew aboard the Mir space station the Progress T-15 then undocked and deployed the reflector from the end of the Russian Progress spacecraft on 4 February 1993, next to the Russian Mir space ...
Artist's concept of a heliogyro, proposed to visit Halley's Comet in 1986. Each blade would be 8 m (26 ft) wide and 6.2 km (3.9 mi), for 0.6 km 2 (0.23 sq mi) of sail area. Solar sail types. A heliogyro could have dozens of blades. UltraSail is a proposed type of robotic spacecraft that uses radiation pressure exerted by sunlight for propulsion.
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]
Some of the mentionable low-thrust propulsion methods are, ionic propulsion, Hall-effect thruster and solar-sail systems. The electrostatic ion thruster uses high-voltage electrodes to accelerate ions with electrostatic forces, and achieve a specific impulse within the range of 4000-8000s.
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]
Magnetic sail animation. A magnetic sail is a proposed method of spacecraft propulsion where an onboard magnetic field source interacts with a plasma wind (e.g., the solar wind) to form an artificial magnetosphere (similar to Earth's magnetosphere) that acts as a sail, transferring force from the wind to the spacecraft requiring little to no propellant as detailed for each proposed magnetic ...