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Shortly after the beginning of manned spaceflights, some engineers considered the possibility of navigating through space propelled solely by the power of solar winds, in very much the same way a ship does so on Earth, using its sails to capture the wind. The first actual tests of such a system date back to the early 2000’s, but attempts since then have largely failed, mostly due to delivery system malfunction. A Japanese one was successfully launched in 2004, but accurate control was not demonstrated. Now, a US company plans to try that again, this time keeping previous lessons in mind. California-based Planetary Society was among the first to attempt to fly a solar sail-driven spacecraft, with its Cosmos-1 craft, launched in 2005. A problem with its Russian rocket, however, caused the mission to fail. When NASA launched its first prototype, named NanoSail-D, it failed because the experimental SpaceX-constructed Falcon 1 rocket did not reach its destination. “In Cosmos!
-1 we had a more conventional spacecraft, but the technology has moved ahead now. You can actually get a higher performance sail with a lower mass spacecraft,†says Planetary Society executive director Louis Friedman, quoted by Space. At this point, it may be that the NanoSail-D is the best option for basing future designs of s...
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http://news.softpedia.com/news/Company-Prepares-for-Solar-Sail-Live-Test-119058.shtml
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