solar sail
Hunting LightSail in Orbit
The hunt is on in the satellite tracking community, as the U.S. Air Force’s super-secret X-37B space plane rocketed into…
To The Moon! Crowdfunded Solar Sail Shoots For Lunar Launch
It's a tiny satellite with ambitious goals: to zip all the way from the Earth to the Moon using a…
Huge Solar Sail Portion Unfurls In Crucial Ground Test
We're sure the people in that picture above must have had sweaty hands as they unfurled a huge solar sail…
NASA to Test New Solar Sail Technology
[/caption] Solar sails, much like anti-matter and ion engines appear at first glance to only exist in science fiction. Many…
Last & Best Chances to See NanoSail-D
[/caption] Over the next few weeks, skywatchers will have excellent viewing opportunities for the NanoSail-D solar sail. The satellite is…
Success! NanoSail-D Deploys
We have a solar sail! As we reported on the 19th, the little cubesat that was thought to be lost…
Separation Camera Takes Full Images and ‘Movie’ of IKAROS Solar Sail
[/caption] Two small "separation cameras" were ejected from JAXA's (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) IKAROS solar sail, which successfully took some…
Japanese Solar Sail Deploys Successfully
[/caption] New images and data from the IKAROS solar sail show the thin solar film has deployed and expanded successfully…
Planetary Society to Launch Three Separate Solar Sails
[/caption] On the 75th anniversary of astronomer Carl Sagan's birth, the Planetary Society announced their plans to sail a spacecraft…