NASA has announced a new vision for space navigation using sunlight as a force.
The Diffractive Solar Navigation Project has raised $2 million in research and development funding.
The sun’s rays exert power over people and things.
On Earth, it’s not observable, but in the vacuum of space, light rays can propel even large objects forward.
If successfully designed, solar sails would eliminate the need for expensive fuel and propulsion technologies in space flight.
“As we reach further into the universe than ever before, we will need cutting-edge, innovative technologies to power our missions,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. He said.
Solar sails work like kites in the wind, but instead of a kite, imagine a spaceship, and instead of the wind works the sun.
“Each photon imparts a small amount of momentum, but the Sun pumps out billions and billions of them every second,” said Planetary Society Executive Director Bill Nye. Explain.
“If we had a spacecraft that was low enough in mass, large enough and reflective enough, the photons might push it up quite a bit.”
However, this push is going in one direction: scientists are working on the grid of the sail plate so that the force can be distributed and move the ship in three dimensions.
“A reflective solar sail is a modern version of the ancient view of optical sails,” said a researcher close to the project.
In fact, solar sails are an old idea reaching new levels of achievability.
what nbc news The story concerned the correspondence between famous scholars Johannes Kepler and Galileo.
Kepler wrote to Galileo in 1608: “Provide ships or sails adapted to heavenly breezes, and there will be those who will encourage even that emptiness.”
Previous attempts to put light sails in space had frustrating results: a rocket carrying a prototype exploded before leaving Earth, and another sail smash Regardless of the environment.
NASA hopes the new $2 million in funding will propel solar sails from theory to reality.
This story originally appeared Sun Reproduced here with permission.
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