The ribbon solar sail will be a solar sail design using a thin film strip embedded with diffractive gratings. It is a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) project. This configuration leverages ...

Solar sails have some major advantages over traditional propulsion methods—most notably, they don't use any propellant. But, how exactly do they turn? In traditional sailing, a ship's captain can ...

An experimental NASA solar sail can be seen in the night sky as it orbits the Earth. NASA's Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) launched in April 2024 atop a Rocket Lab Electron rocket. The ...

Solar sailing has moved from science fiction concept to working hardware, and now a new generation of entrepreneurs wants to turn that gentle push of sunlight into a commercial engine. Instead of ...

NASA has launched the latest attempt to test solar sail propulsion technology. The Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3), consisting of a CubeSat the size of a microwave oven and a solar sail, ...

Depending on the mission they've been created to fulfill spacecraft can be powered by a variety of technologies. Presently, the most widespread is the one that uses propellant and rocket engines. But ...

It was back in May we last heard about NASA launching its Advanced Composite Solar Sail System, which if successful could revolutionize space travel in the solar system and perhaps even further out ...

NASA is gearing up to launch an advanced solar sail spacecraft later this month. Using a new boom made of lightweight polymer composites, the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System is scheduled to lift ...

More than four months after launching to space, a solar-sailing spacecraft has successfully spread its wings above our planet. Just like the wind guides a sailboat on the water, it only takes a slight ...