Space Sail

A solar sail spacecraft has large reflective sails that capture the momentum of light from the sun and use that momentum to push the spacecraft forward.

Space sail. Drag sail technology is designed to launch with a host spacecraft or launch vehicle and deploy at the end of the host vehicle s mission. These particles of light have no mass and yet when they impinge on something they can impart momentum and. Sits fully deployed in a 100 foot diameter vacuum chamber at nasa s glenn research center.

The drag provided by the earth s atmosphere will accelerate the vehicle s deorbit called spinnaker3 this drag sail isn t the first to be launched into space. A number of spaceflight missions to test solar propulsion and navigation have been proposed since the 1980s. A solar sail simply put is a spacecraft propelled by sunlight.

Whereas conventional rockets are propelled by the combustion of rocket fuel a solar sail is pushed forward by light from the sun. They also sought to execute a navigation sequence with mission capable accuracy. The first spacecraft to make use of the technology was ikaros launched in 2010.

The sail was intended to be flight tested in 2015 launched aboard a falcon 9 rocket and then deployed and unfurled in space to catch the sunlight while researchers tested attitude controls and assessed sail stability and their ability to trim. With these anomalies bialy and loeb suggest there is only one other viable alternative. A magnetic sail could also thrust directly against planetary and solar magnetospheres.

Solar sails also called light sails or photon sails are a method of spacecraft propulsion using radiation pressure exerted by sunlight on large mirrors. Artist s conception of sunjammer sail in flight above earth. That it is a mechanical light sail designed to use starlight to propel it through space.

The planetary society s lightsail 2 mission is one example of this technology in action. Space services holdings inc a new method of space travel is about to get its moment in the sun. A four quadrant solar sail system created by nasa s solar sail propulsion team at the marshall space flight center in huntsville ala and its industry partner l garde inc.