NASA Gives Green Light to Diffractive Solar Sail Project

As NASA's exploration continues to push boundaries, a new solar sail concept selected by the agency for development toward a demonstration mission could carry science to new destinations.
Like a sailboat using wind to cross the ocean, solar sails use the pressure exerted by sunlight to propel a craft through space. Existing reflective solar sail designs are typically very large and very thin, and they are limited by the direction of the sunlight, forcing tradeoffs between power and navigation. Diffractive lightsails would use small gratings embedded in thin films to take advantage of a property of light called diffraction, which causes light to spread out when it passes through a narrow opening. This would allow the spacecraft to make more efficient use of sunlight without sacrificing manoeuvrability.
The Diffractive Solar Sailing project was selected for Phase III study under the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. Phase III aims to strategically transition NIAC concepts with the highest potential impact for NASA, other government agencies, or commercial partners.
Diffractive light sailing would extend solar sail capability beyond what's possible with missions in development today. The project is led by Amber Dubill of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. The feasibility of the concept was previously studied under NIAC's Phase I and Phase II awards.
Work under Phase III will optimize the sail material and perform ground tests in support of this conceptual solar mission. Orbits passing over the Sun's north and south poles are difficult to achieve using conventional spacecraft propulsion. Lightweight diffractive lightsails, propelled by the constant pressure of sunlight, could place a constellation of science spacecraft in orbit around the Sun's poles to advance our understanding of the Sun and improve our space weather forecasting capabilities.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said: “As we venture farther out into the cosmos than ever before, we’ll need innovative, cutting-edge technologies to drive our missions, The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program helps to unlock visionary ideas – like novel solar sails – and bring them closer to reality.”
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Narrated by:
Max Culina

Tags:
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[SquirrelDarling]

We can’t change the wind, but we can adjust the sails.

[visualcraft]

Can huge sails be used to case shadow on earth and slow global worming while we figure our the CO2 issue?

[mathiaslist]

unfortunately only reflective lightsails with booms were shown

[klubmusix]

Where you going to fly to? And explore where or what is going to be there?a new colony built with what energy you get from? If you can build a dome in the middle of the Sahara with no outside support then yeah cause for a self sustaining colony you need a whole network of life and energy support grid all connect to each other like the roots of the forest that criss cross from an eco system to support life like water mineral and solar energy to live there.... build a sailboat don’t mean you can be space astronaut