SPACE — In his youth, NASA technologist Les Johnson was fascinated by the 1974 novel The Mote in God’s Eye by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven. It depicts an alien spaceship powered by a solar sail visiting humanity on Earth. Currently, Johnson and the NASA team are preparing to test similar technology.
NASA has long stated plans for solar sail technology as a promising space transportation method. The agency achieved an important technological milestone in January with the successful deployment of one of four identical solar sail quadrants. The solar sail deployment was showcased Jan. 30 at Redwire Corp.’s new facility in Longmont, Colorado.
The Solar sail team is led by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center based in Huntsville, Alabama. The team consisted of prime contractor Redwire and subcontractor NeXolve.
In that work, Redwire developed a deployment mechanism and boom nearly 100 feet long. Meanwhile NeXolve provides a screen membrane. In addition to leading the project, Marshall developed the algorithms needed to control and navigate displays while flying in space.
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Solar Sail is a propulsion system powered by sunlight reflected from the sail, much like a sailboat reflects the wind. Although only a quarter of the screen is deployed during installation at Redwire, the complete screen will measure 17,780 feet or approximately 5,419 square meters when fully opened.
Even though it is very wide, the Solar Screen is very thin, with a thickness of less than a human hair or only 2 and a half microns. The screen is made of polymer material coated with aluminum.
NASA’s Science Mission Directorate recently funded solar sail technology to reach a new technology readiness level or TRL 6. That is, ready for flight proposals on science missions.
“This (deployment) is the last big step in the field before it is ready to be proposed for a space mission,” said Johnson, who has been involved in solar sail technology at Marshall for about 25 years.
“The next step is for scientists to propose using solar sails in their mission. “We have achieved our goal and demonstrated that we are ready to fly,” he said.
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Solar sails capable of traversing space would provide many potential benefits for space exploration missions. Because this technology does not require any fuel, resulting in very high propulsion performance with a very small mass.
The in-space propulsion system is well suited for low-mass missions in new orbits. “Once you escape Earth’s gravity and head into space, what matters is efficiency and enough thrust to travel from one position to another,” Johnson said.
2024-02-14 12:45:00
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