NASA Unfurls Largest Solar Cruiser Sail Quadrant Ever Deployed

NASA and industry partners used two 100-foot lightweight composite booms to stretch out a 4,300-square-foot (400-square-meter) prototype solar sail quadrant for the first time in Building 4316 at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, on Oct. 13.

Solar sails use the force of light – not rocket fuel – to fly in deep space. They get a gentle, constant push from sunlight particles, or photons, hitting their giant reflective surfaces.

The fully deployed sail the covers an area larger than the surface of a tennis court with an aluminum-coated plastic material that’s thinner than a human hair. The full-scale prototype is only a quarter of the sail designed to fly the Solar Cruiser spacecraft towards the Sun and demonstrate orbits that would be difficult or impossible for conventional satellites to maintain.

Do not forget to share your opinion with us to provide you with the best posts !