Originally published June 29 2005
Solar-powered spacecraft will orbit in June
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A filmmaker, an international association of space buffs and Russian aerospace organizations will use a leftover Soviet ballistic missile to put the first "solar sail" into orbit. They hope to show that sunlight's gentle push might one day enable a spacecraft to reach speeds far greater than anything achieved by a mere rocket.
This unusual device, which looks like a 6,500-square-foot flower with eight triangular, mirrorlike petals, does not use wind, as Kepler predicted.
Instead, it hopes to show that sunlight's gentle push might one day enable a spacecraft to reach speeds far greater than anything achieved by a mere rocket.
"The design life for this mission is only a month," said Louis Friedman, project director for the venture known as Cosmos 1.
Solar sails work on a relatively simple principle -- that beams of light bouncing off a reflective surface will transmit a push to the surface, driving it forward.
"The basic trick is to get a large enough sail surface and a spacecraft that's light enough so you can move," said NASA In-Space Propulsion Technology Manager Les Johnson, who is overseeing two NASA solar-sail projects expected to be ready sometime after 2010.
Space visionaries talk about using sails to travel between the stars, but beyond Jupiter, sunshine is not strong enough to provide the impulse, making it necessary to develop some kind of Earth- or space-based laser or microwave "ray gun" to provide light as the sails move into deep space.
In the relatively near term, however, solar sails might offer tremendous advantages over conventional propulsion for satellites orbiting the sun closer in than Earth.
Instead of using up precious fuel in station-keeping "burns," solar-sail spacecraft will be able to change position at any time using the force imparted by the sun's rays.
Friedman said he first began thinking about solar sails in the 1970s as a NASA mission planner at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
In 1980, Friedman joined planetary scientist Bruce Murray and astronomer and author Carl Sagan in founding the Pasadena, Calif.-based Planetary Society, an international advocacy organization dedicated to space exploration.
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