Tag
#lightsail
2 posts
Solar Sails and Lightsails: Sailing to the Stars on Photons
Light carries momentum. When photons bounce off a reflective surface, they push it — imperceptibly at first, but in the vacuum of space with no air resistance, that gentle push accumulates for years and years. Solar sails use sunlight to accelerate spacecraft without carrying any fuel at all. Laser-driven lightsails could push them to a fraction of the speed of light.
Breakthrough Starshot and Laser-Pushed Lightsails to Alpha Centauri
In 2016, a coalition of scientists and billionaires announced a project to send a thumbnail-sized spacecraft to Alpha Centauri within a generation. The plan: accelerate a tiny sail to 20% the speed of light using a ground-based laser array. The physics works. The engineering is the challenge.