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Topic: Solar sail

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	TECH ISP - Solar Sails Fundamental Physics (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		A photon sail is a spacecraft accelerated by the momentum of the electromagnetic photons that are reflected from it.
		The solar sail is accelerated by momentum transfer from photons emitted by the Sun that strike the sail.
		The solar flux striking the sail surface varies with the square of the inverse of the distance to the Sun's center.
	www.inspacepropulsion.com /tech/sails_physics.html (2311 words)

	Solar sailing 'breaks laws of physics' - 04 July 2003 - New Scientist
		A physicist is claiming that solar sailing - the idea of using sunlight to blow spacecraft across the solar system - is at odds with the laws of thermal physics.
		A solar sail is essentially a giant mirror that reflects photons of sunlight back in the direction they came from.
		Solar sails are designed to be perfect mirrors, meaning that they reflect all the photons that strike them.
	www.newscientist.com /article.ns?id=dn3895 (682 words)

	CNN.com - NASA tests solar sail technology - May 16, 2005
		Solar sail propulsion uses energy from the sun in the same way that a sailing boat is powered by the wind, reducing the need for a spacecraft to carry heavy fuel reserves.
		A spacecraft powered by a solar sail would require no onboard propellant, increasing its range of mobility and enabling it to hover at a fixed point in space for longer periods of time.
		Murphy said a solar sail spacecraft would need a wingspan of 80 to 160 meters to gain sufficient momentum from the sun, depending on the mass of the craft.
	www.cnn.com /2005/TECH/space/05/13/vision.solarsail/index.html (469 words)

	SPACE.com -- Riding the Sun: Maiden Flight Looms for Solar Sail Satellite
		The mission, which will use a solar sail to carry a spacecraft ever farther from Earth, is the first use of a propulsion technology that may pave the way for interstellar flights.
		The Cosmos 1 mission, however, will be the first solar sail to be unfurled in space, allowing researchers to study the effectiveness of the deployment process and ability to control the sail.
		NASA missions for solar sails are expected to be long-duration flights requiring hardy material that can withstand intense heat as well as high radiation doses, he added.
	www.space.com /businesstechnology/technology/cosmos_sail_030806.html (1182 words)

	Solar sail - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Tilting the reflective sail at an angle from the Sun produces thrust at an angle that bisects the angle between the Sun and the spacecraft.
		Critics of the solar sail argue that solar sails are impractical for orbital and interplanetary missions because they move on an indirect course.
		Suggestion of a solar sail with roller reefing, hybrid propulsion and a central docking and payload station.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Solar_sail (3040 words)

	ITSF Brochure: Propulsion Techniques: Solar- or Light Sails
		Sails using the solar wind or only the light from stars are less efficient at larger distance from the Sun.
		Basically, the light sail is a use of James C. Maxwell’s discovery in 1873 that light reflected in a mirror applied pressure to the mirror.
		The danger of having the sail flap around or collapse in the fluctuating photon stream from the Sun seems to be a problem considered only in the real world, where ways of reinforcing the sail with poles seem popular.
	www.itsf.org /brochure/solarsail.html (1371 words)

	Verein Sonnensegel - CH-3110 Münsingen Switzerland (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		The elegant shape of the sail is a metaphor for movement and lightness.
		The sail´s mast is 22 meters high and consists of three steel tubes which are held together by triangular steel plates in intervals of one meter each.
		The shape of the sail is formed by a curved steel tube which is attached to the mast and by a horizontal boom at the bottom.
	www.solarsail.ch /en/construction.html (505 words)

	Researchers Prepare Solar Sail Test
		The group hopes that solar sails can be used to boost or decrease the orbits of spacecraft, travel between the planets and someday even take humans to worlds around other stars.
		When the sun's energy hits the surface of the solar sail, the particles, or photons -- traveling at the speed of light -- provide continuous thrust that can be increased or decreased depending on the sail's relationship to the sun.
		The sail, spanning 440 yards or twice the diameter of the dome at the Louisiana Superdome, would be the largest spacecraft ever built, the agency said.
	www.nci.org /a/alten-solarsail-ap22701.htm (737 words)

	Solar Sails - An interview with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
		Solar sails are a creative and unique way to harness the sun's energy for transportation, requiring no other fuel.
		Solar sails act just as the name implies: They are a physical sail, pushed by the sun's energy.
		Solar sails, needing to catch as many photons as possible, are by necessity very large.
	www.andybrain.com /extras/solar-sail.htm (2420 words)

	Solar Sail (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Solar sails have offered tremendous potential for spacecraft propulsion in missions requiring low levels of thrust over many months or years without the mass and volumes associated with a propellant.
		Solar sails develop thrust from the pressure exerted on the film by reflected sun light.
		Due to the extremely low-pressure produced by the solar flux on the sail, a solar sail must be very light and have an extremely large area in order to produce usable accelerations.
	www.stg.srs.com /atd/Solar_Sail.htm (255 words)

	NASA - Measuring Up to a Solar Sail
		Solar sails are giant, flat sheets of very thin, reflective material -- 40-to-100 times thinner than a piece of writing paper -- supported by an arrangement of lightweight booms or masts.
		Solar sail technology was selected for development in August 2002 by NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
		Solar sail technology is being developed by the In-Space Propulsion Technology Program, managed by NASA's Science Mission Directorate and implemented by the In-Space Propulsion Technology Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center.
	www.nasa.gov /vision/earth/technologies/solar_sails5.html (827 words)

	SAILS, HOW A SAILING BOAT WORKS AND SAIL DESIGN - SOLAR NAVIGATOR WORLD ELECTRIC NAVIGATION CHALLENGE, NELSON KRUSCHANDL
		However simply put, a sail should be pulled in until it fills with wind, but no further than the point where the front edge of the sail (the luff) is exactly in line with the wind.
		How close a boat can sail to the wind depends on the wind speed, since what the boat "sees" is the apparent wind, i.e., the vector sum of the actual wind and the boat's own velocity.
		A sailing boat is turned by a rudder which itself is controlled by a tiller or a wheel.
	www.solarnavigator.net /sails.htm (3430 words)

	Institute of Space and Astronautical Science \| JAXA
		The launch was the culmination of a historic new technology, and the success this time has really made a great achievement in the history of solar sail.
		And in 2001, the Cosmos 1 test spacecraft was launched from a submerged Russian submarine, but the command for separate the spacecraft did not function, and the solar sail experiment by this sub-orbital flight not carried out.
		The goal of Cosmos 1 is to achieve a controlled solar sail flight, demonstrating the feasibility of solar sail propulsion.
	www.isas.jaxa.jp /e/snews/2004/0809.shtml (514 words)

	BBC NEWS \| Science/Nature \| Solar sail probe 'probably lost'
		The sail reflects particles of light, or photons, from the Sun, gaining momentum in the opposite direction.
		"Solar sailing is really the only known technology that could potentially take us to the stars one day because it does not have to carry fuel with it and because it can keep accelerating - even at incredible distances," the Planetary Society's Amir Alexander told the BBC.
		The acceleration from sunlight is very small; but the advantage of solar sailing over chemical propulsion is that the acceleration is sustained.
	news.bbc.co.uk /1/hi/sci/tech/4110912.stm (583 words)

	NASA Solar Sail Propulsion Team Successfully Deploys Two Solar Sail Systems
		Solar sail propulsion uses the Sun's energy to travel through space, much the way wind pushes sailboats across water.
		The boom is the core of the support structure for the thin, reflective solar sail itself - merely a fraction of the thickness of a human hair - and includes a stowage structure and built-in deployment mechanism.
		Solar sail technology was selected for development in August 2002 by NASA's Office of Space Science in Washington.
	www.spacedaily.com /news/solarsails-04a.html (869 words)

	Universe Today - Audio: NASA Tests a Solar Sail
		We are taking one particular solar sail concept which is a square sail; it has 4 booms that come out and in between the booms are triangular sails and that system is designed to carry payloads that are relatively modest in size: the Robotic Science payload.
		Well, the thrust that the sail can produce is proportional to the strength of the sunlight and as you go closer to the Sun, the strength of that propulsion goes up as the square of the distance as you get closer so actually, it works much more efficiently close to the Sun.
		We really have to have a flight of the solar sail and see how it operates in space: the loads on the structure of the sail are much, much less than they are here on the ground.
	www.universetoday.com /am/publish/audio_nasa_solar_sail.html?1252005 (1306 words)

	Sagan's Solar Sail
		The Interstellar Probe Project seeks to use solar sail technology to build a spacecraft that can travel outside of the sun's influence to study the composition of space.
		Carnegie Mellon University's Solar Blade Solar Sail Project is working to reduce the payload mass of solar sail spacecraft.
		The Team Encounter Deep Space Probe will launch a solar sail spacecraft carrying a payload of human biological samples, along with human messages and photographs, as an interstellar "message in a bottle".
	www.acfnewsource.org /science/solar_sail.html (676 words)

	APOD: 2004 August 21 - Solar Sail (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Nearly half a kilometer wide, the delicate solar sail would be unfurled in space.
		solar sail technologies on earth and the Japanese Space Agency ISAS has deployed solar sail material in space.
		The Planetary Society in collaboration with the Space Research Institute (IKI) in Moscow and partners is preparing to launch Cosmos 1, a solar sail powered spacecraft.
	antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov /apod/ap040821.html (209 words)

	Wired News: Solar Sail Plying Turbulent Seas
		The solar sail exhibit is part of Rockefeller Center's new Centennial of Flight show, which traces technological advances made in aviation during the last century.
		will prove that solar sails are the future of space flight, a viable technology that can allow humans to glide gracefully through space relying primarily on naturally produced propulsion instead of jet engines and fuel.
		But some scientists say solar sailing is an impossible dream that defies the unbreakable laws of physics.
	www.wired.com /news/culture/0,1284,59817,00.html (693 words)

	ScienceDaily: Japan Deploys Solar Sail Film In Space (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Solar Sail Technology Could Use Sun's Energy For Future Space Missions (April 12, 2005) -- NASA engineers and their industry partners are preparing to test two 20-meter (66-feet) long solar sail propulsion system designs -- a critical milestone in development of a unique propulsion...
		Solar-B: A New Solar Mission To Study The Dynamic Sun (September 20, 2006) -- A new Japanese-led solar mission with ESA participation is preparing for launch on Sept. 23, 2006.
		Solar wind -- A solar wind is a stream of charged particles (i.e., a plasma) which are ejected from the upper atmosphere of a star.
	www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2004/08/040810102738.htm (1567 words)

	[No title] (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		The missile launch was a bargain; NPO Lavochkin was already working on inflatable spacecraft (the masts that hold the Cosmos 1 sail must inflate in space), and Russian interest in solar sails dates back to the visionary Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, who wrote about them as early as 1921.
		The earliest NASA could fly a solar sail is 2009 on the Space Technology 9 demonstration mission, although other technologies will be competing for that flight.
		The European Space Agency is interested in solar sails too, for reasons similar to NASA's — to place an orbiter around the poles of the Sun.
	www.nature.com /news/2005/050214/full/433678a.html (1722 words)

	Solar Sail Web Links
		Solar sails are discussed as a variation of the design.
		Solar Polar Sail Mission - a solar observation spacecraft delivered to a 0.48 AU radius solar polar orbit by a solar sail.
		Solar Sail - an illustration by Joe Bergeron for the astronomy textbook The Cosmic Perspective.
	www.solarsails.info /web/index.html (1019 words)

	CNN.com - Date set for solar spacecraft launch - Jun 8, 2005
		After three years a solar sail would be traveling at more than 100,000 miles an hour -- a speed that would enable it to reach Pluto, the solar system's most outlying planet, in just five years.
		"The data from this historic flight is critical because solar sailing is a technology that holds much promise for humanity's future in space," said Cosmos 1 project director Louis Friedman, who established The Planetary Society in 1980 with late American astronomer Carl Sagan to advance the exploration of the solar system.
		Once deployed, The Planetary Society said the solar sail would be clearly visible from earth as it orbited the planet.
	www.cnn.com /2005/TECH/space/06/07/solarsail.vision/index.html (424 words)

	Simple control strategy derived for solar-sail spacecraft
		The researchers derived an efficient control algorithm to continuously orient the sail in three dimensions in order to maximize the component of sail force along the desired trajectory.
		"The solar sail does not sail on the solar wind – the stream of charged particles that produces the familiar glow of auroras," Coverstone said.
		Sunlight striking the sail will apply a force, which can be directed by tilting the sail.
	www.news.uiuc.edu /scitips/01/04sail.html (500 words)

	USATODAY.com - Sail away into space (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-10)
		Long the stuff of science fiction, solar sails are tantalizing because their fuel of sunlight is free and lasts forever.
		For Cosmos 1, the solar pressure that is too light to be felt on Earth but apparent in the vacuum of space should trigger tiny accelerations of about.10-mile per hour per second.
		Theoretical studies have conjured up interstellar solar sail craft getting a boost from high-powered lasers, thereby allowing it to travel at 0.4 the speed of light, or about 270 million miles per hour.
	www.usatoday.com /tech/science/space/2004-11-09-solarsail_x.htm (517 words)

	- Solar Thruster Sailor (STS) - Solar Sail with thruster ring
		Roller Reefing for Solar Thruster Sailor, enabling the spacecraft to cruise into and out of the Earth atmospheric drag zone and enabling ease of deployment of very large solar sails, avoiding folding, unfolding positioning and fixing a huge sail in one piece to the space craft structure.
		The Solar Thruster Sailor (STS), a spacecraft combining solar sail propulsion with thrusters and payload area has ample room for solar cells and payload on it´s whole disk area (unlike nowadays first solar sails to come with their already overcrowed payload/function bus).
		Another concept for lever-usage to steer the solar sail are the steering vanes on the square solar sail shown at island.org.
	solar-thruster-sailor.info /links.html (6446 words)

	Weird Words: Solar sail
		The idea is that a spacecraft would unfurl a huge but incredibly thin solar sail, perhaps a kilometre in diameter.
		NASA used solar sailing to increase the experiment time for the Mercury Mariner spaceprobe in 1974-75.
		And by controlling the attitude of the spacecraft and the angle of the solar panels to the sun, the operations team was able to cause the spacecraft to visit Mercury several times more than would have been possible with the on-board liquid propulsion system”.
	www.worldwidewords.org /weirdwords/ww-sol1.htm (365 words)

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