NASA prepares to launch Sunjammer solar sail

NASA is completing the assembly of a solar sail with an area of ​​about 1,200 m ² , which will be put into orbit in 2014. The goal is to demonstrate the possibilities of moving in space using the pressure of sunlight: photons act on a sail with a force of 0.01 Newton . This is not so small: NASA engineers are forced to compensate for solar pressure when calculating the trajectories of even ordinary devices. The pressure of light affects them much more strongly than the solar wind (a stream of ionized particles).

The sail is capable of gaining speed to the very borders of the heliosphere, and theoretically it can accelerate to such speed that, when launched in 2010, it would overtake the Voyager-1 probe by 2018. Although he has been in flight since 1977 and recently begango beyond the heliosphere . Voyager does not have resources for overclocking, but there is enough fuel for heating equipment and radio communications.

Theoretically, a solar sail can still be fitted with a laser gun from the Earth or the Moon, and then it can even accelerate to 1/10 of the speed of light, according to some engineers.

The solar sail area of 1200 m ² will be the third solar sail, which sends mankind into space, but the largest among all. It is seven times larger than the maximum-sized solar sail that was sent to space before, while weighing ten times less than it: less than 32 kg. The volume of the sail is about a cubic meter when folded.



Previous NASA Experimentwith solar sails was not too successful. The material of the NanoSail-D sail for some reason could not turn around for a month and a half, being stuck in the compartment. After that, the bug eliminated by itself - and the sail nevertheless turned to its full width, but that case showed how complicated and unreliable this design was when deployed.

NASA's new solar sail makes Kapton , a thin, durable film made by DuPont Corporation. Physical properties of the material, see the documentation .

The name was given to the Sunjammer sail in honor of the 1964 short story by Arthur Clark.