Solar sails (also known as lightsails, light sails, and photon sails) are a method of spacecraft propulsion using radiation pressure exerted by sunlight...

A diffractive solar sail, or diffractive lightsail, is a type of solar sail which relies on diffraction instead of reflection for its propulsion. Current...

LightSail is a project to demonstrate controlled solar sailing within low Earth orbit using a CubeSat. The project was developed by The Planetary Society...

radiation pressure, which aids in the calculation of a force on a solar sail. Solar irradiance is measured by satellites above Earth's atmosphere, and...

materials for optimizing a solar sail, for instance. Momentary or hours long solar pressures can indeed escalate due to release of solar flares and coronal mass...

allocated funding. A preliminary mission outline suggests the use of solar sails propelled by high energy lasers to increase propulsion. The proposed...

electric sail (also known as an electric solar wind sail or an E-sail) is a proposed form of spacecraft propulsion using the dynamic pressure of the solar wind...

employs a solar sail to continuously modify its orbit in ways that gravity alone would not allow. Typically, a statite would use the solar sail to "hover"...

between solar sail spacecraft. John Merton, a spaceship designer, develops and promotes a lightweight spacecraft with a large area of solar sail, to be...

for a given solar sail's area. However, solar sails still need to be quite large compared to the satellite, which means useful solar sails must be deployed...