Solar sails represent one of the most elegant concepts in space exploration: using sunlight itself to propel spacecraft through the cosmos without any fuel. But these thin, light giants face a ...

Spacecraft outfitted with sails and propelled by the sun are no longer the stuff of science fiction or theoretical space missions. Now, a Rochester Institute of Technology researcher is taking solar ...

NASA / Grover Swartzlander. Solar sails may encounter drag from light itself as they approach a significant fraction of the ...

The ribbon solar sail will be a solar sail design using a thin film strip embedded with diffractive gratings. It is a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) project. This configuration leverages ...

Use cases for smart materials in space exploration keep cropping up everywhere. They are used in everything from antenna deployments on satellites to rover deformation and reformation. The concept, ...

A microwave-sized spacecraft with large silver wings is tumbling in orbit as engineers work to fix a glitch that’s causing it to lose orientation. After deploying four composite booms on board the ...

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Momentus Inc. (NASDAQ: MNTS), a U.S. commercial space company offering satellites, satellite components, and in-space transportation and hosted payload services, ...

If humankind ever travels to distant stars, we might sail there — and it might be sooner than you think. Some of humanity's oldest ships used sails to harness the power of the wind, so it seems ...