Solar sails offer potential for long-duration space exploration missions, enabling spacecraft to reach distant destinations. Hundreds of space missions have been launched since the last lunar mission, including several deep space probes that have been sent to the edges of our solar system. However,...
What is a solar sail? How can you use sunlight to move a spacecraft in outer space? In this article, HowStuffWorks will show you how solar sail technology works, take an in-depth look at the Cosmos-1 mission and find out what solar-sails mean for future
Space How Solar Sails Work Space Could Our Spacecraft Accidentally Ignite an Alien World's Entire Atmosphere? Space How Plasma Rockets Work Space How Space Stations Work Advertisement Behind the X Prize By: Lacy Perry Photo courtesy Ansari X Prize Human history is filled with tales of ...
The Solar One craft is a combination of three "near-future" technologies, like the Navy's compact fusion reactor, and one (literally!) far-flung idea. A lot would have to go right for this idea to work at any point soon.In a fascinating new ...
Photo courtesy NASA No engine is likely to generate superluminal speeds; the laws of physics prevent us from doing that, but we will be able to go many times faster than our current propulsion methods allow. A matter-antimatter engine will take us far beyond our solar system and let us...
first—to describe solar sails in serious detail—Wiley considered the problems of both construction and navigation. Ironically, when he sent the article to space expert Willy Ley, Ley dismissed the idea of solar sailing, saying that “the utilization of solar light pressure just wouldn’t pay....
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The next step for LightSail 2 will be to unfurl its solar sail. The highly anticipated event could happenas soon as Tuesday (July 9). Once deployed, the ultrathin Mylar sails should expand to roughly the size of a boxing ring. The reflective nature of the sail means the satellite could ...
If you hang bed sheets out to dry in a strong wind, you'll know exactly how sailing boats work! But boats don't always want to sail away with the wind blowing straight behind them. In practice, that means the sails have to be positioned at an angle, but the wind will then try to...
“It’s very much like an airplane wing,” says Niclas Dahl, managing director of Oceanbird, a Swedish company that develops these sails. Each one has a main and a flap, which creates a chamber where the wind speed is faster on the outside than the inside. In an aircraft, that discre...