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Demonstration of Nasa's Solar Sail (soon to be launched)

submitted by joemawlma

1 decade 6 years 4 months 1 week ago

Falcon 1 is set to take off as early as July 29, 2008. One of the "piggyback" payloads will be a 4 kg (less than 10 lbs) NASA satellite about the size of a bread box that can unfurl into a 10 meter square solar sail on orbit. This video shows the sail in action.

It took the nuclear powered Voyager probes 30 years to get to the edge of the solar system where they are still traveling outward further every day. Although slower to get started, a solar sail could potentially catch up with a Voyager spacecraft in a single decade using only sun. The radiation pressure on the mirrors provide a minuscule amount of thrust by reflecting photons.