Solar Sails

ABSTRACT

Hundreds of space missions have been launched since the last lunar mission, including several deep space probes that have been sent to the edges of our solar system. However, our journeys to space have been limited by the power of chemical rocket engines and the amount of rocket fuel that a spacecraft can carry. Today, the weight of a space shuttle at launch is approximately 95 percent fuel. What could we accomplish if we could reduce our need for so much fuel and the tanks that hold it?

International space agencies and some private corporations have proposed many methods of transportation that would allow us to go farther, but a manned space mission has yet to go beyond the moon. The most realistic of these new space transportation options calls for the elimination of both rocket fuel and engines altogether. The world space powers like NASA, ESA, RSA, etc... Is studying an amazing technology called solar sails that will use the sun's power to send us to other worlds!

‘Fundamentally the concept behind the solar sail is to use a large reflective surface to provide propulsion for a spacecraft through the use of sunlight pressure for the motive force’

Here in this context I shall purposes to explain about solar sailing, and how the idea of solar sailing developed, how close this space agency is to implementing this technology and how far and fast solar sails might take us in the universe!