Less than two months after being unfurled in space, Japan’s IKAROS solar sail accomplished its ambitious aim – becoming the first spacecraft to travel in space, powered by the sun. Now it has demonstrated its fine steering ability.
Measuring 20m diagonally, the solar sail is made from aluminised plastic, which is as thin as the diameter of a red blood cell. 0.0003 inches thin, in fact. The material it’s made from reflects the solar radiation back towards the sun, which is how it propelled itself through space. The liquid crystal lining the outside of the solar sail reflects different volumes of sunlight and is responsible for steering it through space, with the Aerospace Exploration Agency back in Japan controlling the angles. [New Scientist]
steve
Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 8:32 AMso did they hit any tachion eddies…. please someone get this reference.
mick
Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 12:17 PMDS9 .. gotta love it
NacaYoda
Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 9:14 AMCan it tack towards the sun?
Ben
Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 12:30 PMDoes it spin out when hit by a solar flare?
James-Mac
Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 1:13 PMSo, bearing in mind that space isn’t empty, it’s full of dust and micrometorites, what happens with rips and perforations?
Dave
Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 1:42 PMDuct-tape?
Troy
Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 3:21 PMSo… What sorts of speeds are we looking at?
Bern
Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 5:45 PMReally small ones. The sail is very small, and the spacecraft mass is ~300kg. The JAXA press release says they’ve measured a thrust of 1.12 milliNewtons due to the sail, which equates to an acceleration of about 3.8×10-7 g’s. That makes a velocity difference of about a third of a metre per second per day.
To put that into context: to move from low earth orbit to a low lunar orbit to take you to a low lunar orbit requires a delta-V of more than 4,000 m/s. It’d take IKAROS 12,000 days (a bit over 32 years) to make that transfer, ignoring the fact that doing it so slowly takes about 40% more delta-V (which would push it out to ~46 years).
Not particularly useful at this point, but it’s a technology demonstrator, not intended to actually produce *useful* thrust. You’d be wanting to use a *much* larger sail for a real application.
kalamondi
Sunday, January 16, 2011 at 5:52 PMI am a sci fi fantasy fiction writer, one of my novels consist of solar sails, finite organic membranes that absorb the ion dust and sun burst from space. The sail absorb the energy into its sail and the discharge is the fuel. The ship is organic made up of the same stuff as the solar sails. Self contained, self absorbing it allows itself to repair instantly any rent and rip from whatever is out there. Solar sails are the only way we can explore the universe, the space ship will be organic.Speed of light will be an occurence but not important when the ship and its crew will go through phases of renewal when worn down.