Over the last two decades, Les Johnson and his team of engineers have quietly been pushing NASA into a new era of space exploration while nobody was paying attention. As an engineer at the legendary ...

Nearly 70 years after the launch of the first satellite, we still have more questions than answers about space. But a team of Berkeley researchers is on a mission to change this with a proposal to ...

Washington, D.C. –“We’re back!” said Louis Friedman, Executive Director of The Planetary Society. “With an even more ambitious solar sail program than our last venture.” The Planetary Society today ...

NASA has launched the latest attempt to test solar sail propulsion technology. The ACS3’s solar sail is made of a reflective polymer and is held by a boom made of carbon fiber composite material.

The Planetary Society announced July 9 it is delaying the planned deployment of its Light Sail 2 mission spacecraft until at least July 21. The deployment had been planned for July 9. The 344-sq.-foot ...

"As humanity continues to expand space exploration, chemical propulsion will hit its limit." When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

A sunlight-propelled satellite floating though space on huge metallic sails sounds like an idea straight from science fiction. But scientists at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia have ...

HOUSTON—After an attitude control system check delay, The Planetary Society reported a successful July 23 deployment of the Light Sail-2 (LS-2) mission spacecraft’s 344-sq.-ft. Mylar solar sail. It ...

During the Age of Sail, ships circled the globe on voyages of discovery and trade. That era ended in the 1800s, when coal-fired steam engines began to replace wind power. Now we may be entering a new ...

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After more than three years circling the Earth, the Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 mission has come to an end following a fiery reentry. The satellite was an important tech demo for the idea of solar ...

NASA has launched the latest attempt to test solar sail propulsion technology. The Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3), consisting of a CubeSat the size of a microwave oven and a solar sail, ...