The first experiment in a radical new form of propulsion for spacecraft has been declared a success. The Planetary Society, led by the well-known scientist Bill Nye, reported that their experimental spacecraft used sunlight as a source of energy for propulsion to complete an orbital trip around the planet Earth.
Solar Sailing propels a spacecraft when sunlight is captured by a large reflective sail that is attached to the vehicle. The pressure from the sunlight is similar to the wind that pushes an oceanic sailboat on the water. The force from light particles from the sun is called solar wind. Even though the light particles known as photons don’t have any mass, the particles exert some pressure due to their energetic nature.
The spacecraft is called LIghtSail 2, and it weighs only 5 kilograms. The ship was launched with the help of SpaceX which is famously led by the Billionaire Elon Musk. Bill Nye was motivated to create the ship because he felt a poetic affinity for the idea of sailing on sunbeams, and the idea that this is actually possible is fascinating.
This experimental test flight is the first successful attempt of orbiting the Earth with the power of solar wind. It flew at a height of approximately two kilometers above the Earth’s surface. The Planetary Society made a previous attempt in 2015 with its LightSail 1 spacecraft. It released a solar sail in space, but it reentered the atmosphere before making a complete orbit via solar wind propulsion. There was also a previous attempt in 2010 by the Aerospace Exploration Agency in Japan that launched a vehicle named IKAROS that used a solar sail to travel past Venus toward the sun.
One of the main challenges of space flight is the vast distances of millions or billions of miles that the vehicles need to travel. With traditional rockets, these flights require a lot of fuel to reach speeds that could make interstellar travel viable. With a light sail, a vehicle doesn’t need to carry any fuel, so this has been considered one of the best ideas for reaching another a nearby star system such as Alpha Centauri.
The LightSail 2 project was funded by members of the organization and also with the help of individual donations in a fundraising campaign. The experiment was a success with a modest budget of only $7 million. Bill Nye believes that this form of propulsion could accelerate the advancement of space travel and help companies such as SpaceX achieve their goals more rapidly.
