Solar Sails

They may not be as quick right off the bat as antimatter/matter reactions, but they're about to send up a satellite to test out the idea of solar sails. Anybody got links?

Hmm that was slightly tough, given that you didn't say who "they" are

But perhaps you meant this ...

http://www.planetary.org/solarsail/update_20040326.html

Slightly off topic for an Xprize forum ... and yet ... strangely cool.

solar sails are awesome things, and they certainly have more potential for long-distance flights than any other known method of transportation.

check out:

http://www.geophys.washington.edu/Space ... odel/M2P2/

Essentially rather than rolling out a huge sail you just inflate a magnetic bubble with plasma. The bubble will be inflated to miles across and deflection of the solar wind results in a change in momentum of the ship. Personally I can't see why this technology could not be used in the ionosphere to launch a hyperverlocity re-entry vehicle into orbit. Combine the M2P2 with the VASIMR and you've got yourself a very flexible engine (the two are such a good fit because the VASIMR requires the production of plasma, as does the M2P2).

That plasma bubble thing is interesting. I tried to find some information about it on the web and of course it's out there, just google for "plasma sail". Everyone talking about it touts it as an alternative to the solar sail.

Given that one of the major inhibitions to pushing an X-prize vehicle to LEO is that re-entry gets harder and harder to deal with as the re-entry speeds increase.

I wonder if it is possible to use a big plasma bubble to help increase atmospheric drag surfaces of a re-entering X-vehicle?

Just trying to kill time between now and the launch.

Hmmm... Great concept! Bears thinking about.

--Ralph

He could have meant this:-

http://cruiser.ru/eng/prod1.php

AKS-1, "first spacecraft with a solar sail", to be launched June 29 on a Dnepr launcher from Baikonur.

An article under www.wissenschaft.de about the most recent Fly-By of Messenger by Mercury mentions that radiation pressure has been applied to get Messenger on the correct path.

The according article under www.space.com doesn't talk about it though.

The german article refers to Johns Hopkins University but doesn't quote any particular person regarding this.

But IF the information is correct it seems to suggest that the radiation pressure is that strong at Mercury that even solar sails based on existing material and conventional technologies may be of observable use there.

What about it?

Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)